


Never Tear Us Apart

by triflinghotmess



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, Pre-Canon, Protective Number Five | The Boy, Sibling Bonding, They all deserve better, They all need hugs, they're getting out of there, things are going to get messy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 22,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22523821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triflinghotmess/pseuds/triflinghotmess
Summary: Later that night, with the blood scoured from every surface of his body and curled up in Klaus’ bed, his brother’s curls tickling his face, Ben finally felt human enough to succumb to sleep. Klaus’ mumbled words hung in the air as he drifted off.“We’re going to blow this joint one day soon”.---Or how a bit of sibling love stops the apocalypse before it gets a chance. Although, it is far from smooth sailing.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 36
Kudos: 220





	1. Chapter 1

Head hanging upside down over the end of the end of his bed, Klaus stared up at the ceiling contemplating the stupid textured patterns in the fancy ceiling. It had been too long.

Too long since dad (no, Hargreeves, he had recently resolved to stop honouring that man with a title he didn’t deserve) had stood at the kitchen door, announcing his present with a blunt “it is time for a personal training session Number Six”. The disruption abruptly stopping short the giggle escaping from Ben’s lips as Klaus good naturedly threw his hand of cards up in the air in response to once again being defeated by his brother.

Fear paralysed Ben for just a second too long and Hargreeves had marched over and grabbed one of Ben’s skinny wrists, dragging him towards the door. Green eyes met brown for just a second, and Klaus made an attempt at a reassuring smile but he was pretty sure it just resembled a weird grimace.

A card that had somehow lodged itself in Ben’s hair, drifted slowly to the ground as the father and adopted son disappeared from Klaus’ view.

Too long since Klaus’ last hit as well if the black shadows flickering around the edge of his vision were anything to go by. The memorable aftermath of batch of laced cocaine which had involved Vanya working herself into a panic attack on stumbling across her brother convulsing with seizures and frothing at the mouth meant he tended to avoid the harder stuff these days, and that was usually effective enough to block out all but the very worst of his hauntings so he was nervous going this long without it.But still, he knew in the warm, fuzzy state that the little bag hidden in his sock drawer would supply, he would probably be too giggly, too full of nonsense and manufactured joy to be of any real use in providing comfort to his brother after he came back from whatever horror he was currently facing.

So Klaus continued to lie on his back, head hanging over the edge of the frame, the blood drumming through his ears a protest against gravity. The steady pounding providing a nice distraction from his niggling worry over Ben and the colour and shapes which were slowly bleeding into the flickering shadows in the edge of his vision. The tangle of Christmas lightsthat Five had unceremoniously dumped on his desk a few months before abruptly jumping out of his room meant that Klaus no longer had to suffer the compulsory lights out that Hargreeves enforced on them after 10 pm. The ghosts always seem to be on their worst behaviour when there was no light, and not knowing what was skulking and screaming in the blackness gave Klaus the feeling of floating over kilometres of deep black ocean, with all its horrors lurking under the surface. This was not a feeling he enjoyed.

A slow, quiet shuffle of footsteps down the hallway interrupted Klaus’ thoughts, and he bolted upright. Straining his ears, he listened for any sign of Hargreeves or Pogo or Mum, before sliding his lanky legs off the bed and quietly padding down the hall, the wooden floor cold on his bare feet. As softly as he could manage, he rapped his knuckles against Ben’s ajar door, and when the usual welcome didn’t come he only waited a few moments before slipping through the door and softly shutting it behind him.

Turning slowly to face the room, he realised he needn’t have bothered with the knock. Ben gave no sign he was aware of Klaus even being in the room. He sat on the edge of his bed eyes staring blankly at wall in front of him. This was not the most alarming thing about the situation in front of him.

Klaus would definitely not describe himself as squeamish. In fact, he thought, it would be pretty hard to be a member of the Umbrella Academy and to be afraid of a bit of gore- it came with the lifestyle of being a teenage vigilante. But the sight in front of him definitely made his stomach heave. What must be litres of blood coated Ben’s small frame, it was matted in his hear, and despite Klaus knowing he was wearing the bland and itchy Academy uniform, the items were indistinguishable.

“Fuck” Klaus muttered to himself.

He slowly moved forward and knelt down in front of his brother. He took two limp, bloody hands in his.

“Ben?” He said as softly as he could so as not to startle the other boy.

“Hey Ben?”

Ben continued to stare past him, a distant glaze in his eyes.

“Hey, hey you’re okay now. It’s over, you’re safe now”.

Klaus continued to murmur reassurances to his brother and after a time, it could have been a minute or it could have been hours, Klaus couldn’t tell. Then with seemingly no prompt, Ben stifled a sob and looked down at him.

“K-Klaus? He choked out, tears now flowing freely down his face and his breath coming out in fast pants.

“Hey Benny” Klaus replied with a small smile and pulled himself up onto the bed to sit beside his brother, keeping his hold on Ben’s hands in the process.

“What…what are you doing here. It’s not safe….I’m not safe. You have to go” Ben struggled to get out around his sobs.

“I’m...I’m a monster” he whispered as if afraid that the actual monster in his torso would react to the words said aloud.

Klaus just chuckled softly and leaned up against Ben’s side, ignoring the blood staining through his blue Academy pyjamas.

“You read every dorky work of that Shakespeare dude before we turned eight, forgive me if I’m not trembling at the sight of your nerdy ass”.

That surprised a short chuckle out of Ben briefly stopping tears that were leaving tracks in the sticky blood that coated his face.

They sat like that for a while, until Ben’s breaths eventually returned to a normal pace. Klaus turned to his brother, his heart hurting a little bit at the sight of sweet Ben, the best of the lot of them, traumatised and shaking at the hands of their father. He longed to yell and curse and maybe even punch old Reggie in the face but he knew that probably wouldn’t help his brother much right now.

“Let’s go get you cleaned up, buddy” he sighed, swallowing down the profanities he longed to scream.

Ben nodded “okay”.

He was immensely grateful towards his brother for not asking what had happened during his personal training session, Klaus seemed to sense that Ben wouldn’t or couldn’t recount the event just yet.

Klaus darted around the room grabbing clean pyjamas and his favourite fluffy socks before grabbing his brothers hand and leading him down the hall to the bathroom. He gently manoeuvred Ben scrawny butt down onto the closed toilet lid while he turned on the taps and squirted in an excessive amount of Allison’s rose scented bath bubbles.

“Righto, Benny Boy in you get”.

When Ben made no move from his position on the toilet seat, Klaus turned back towards his brother.

“Okay, bro?”

The other boy shook his head minutely.

“What if They come out?” He whispered looking down at his blood-soaked torso, irrationally afraid that lifting up his shirt would give Them better access to the outside world.

“They won’t I promise” said Klaus sincerely, “Dickhead Reggie isn’t here to egg Them on and besides the bentacles love me!”

Ben couldn’t argue with that, there was something about Klaus that had The Horrors devoted to them. Ben had theorised that it was his brother’s connection with death that drew Them to him. Perhaps They sensed that Klaus had a foot in two dimensions, the living one and the dead one, in the same way that They did. Even now, he could sense Their protective murmurs towards, Klaus, in Their weird ancient language that somehow Ben could understand. On rare calm occasions, They had come out to play with Klaus, not shredding and roaring like They normally did but with the friendly attitude of a big dog, nudging against Klaus asking for a pet or a game, Their Klaus happily obliging, fascinated by the other- worldly being that lived in his brothers chest.

After what he had been through tonight those weird but kind of nice memories of The Horrors seemed very distant to Ben and Klaus being in such close proximity had a terrifying shiver wracking his body.

His brother, however, held none of the same reservations, wrapping his hands under Ben’s arms and cheerfully hauling him up off the toilet.Klaus seemed to sense that if left to his own devices, Ben would likely succumb to the panic that was building up inside his chest. Or maybe it was just that he saw his brother’s hands were shaking too much to be able to manage undressing himself. So Klaus slowly and gently stripped the blood soaked clothes, stopping after he slid down his uniform shorts with a stifled giggle and a “can’t say I imagined getting into your pants this way Benny”. Ben didn’t even have the state of mind to roll his eyes like he usually did when his brothers overtly sexual sense of humour made an appearance.

“Right, I’ll leave you to it buddy” he said as he collected up the bloody pile of clothing, gave Ben’s shoulder a comforting pat and left him standing in his underpants as he headed towards the door.

“Klaus” Ben said in a small voice, and his brother turned around.

“Can you… is it okay if you stay?”

“Yea. Of course, Ben”

And with that, dumped the clothes in the corner and slid his back against the bath tub nattering away about everything and nothing as a distraction while Ben scrubbed himself clean of the congealed blood that coated his body (and if he was honest, talking meant that he distracted himself from what had caused the blood to coat his brothers body like that).

The ghosts were silent for once, taken aback, Klaus supposed, by the boy who had looked more like a corpse covered in all that blood than some of them.

Later that night, with the blood scoured from every surface of his body and curled up in Klaus’ bed, his brother’s curls tickling his face, Ben finally felt human enough to succumb to sleep. Klaus’ mumbled words hung in the air as he drifted off.

“We’re going to blow this joint one day soon”.


	2. Chapter 2

Klaus gave a little satisfied nod to himself when he woke up and glanced at the alarm clock on his bedside table. Good, there was still 20 minutes until wake up and he had a plan to action. A cold, slimy sensation (“They’re not slimy Klaus, They’re sleek, there’s a difference”) on his wrist alerted him to the fact that a little tentacle had wrapped itself around his wrist like a small embrace. With an amused smile, he gave it a quick pat and watched as it retracted back towards his brother’s weird interdimensional tummy. 

Careful not to wake Ben who was making little whistling sounds in his sleep (Klaus made a mental note to tease him about how cute it was later), he tiptoed out of his room. 

Diego woke to an ungraceful tangle of long limbs thudding on top of him, automatically reaching for the knives he kept ready for action beside his bed before his sleep bleary eyes processed that he wasn’t facing imminent attack, well unless you considered Klaus’ exasperating antics an attack he grumbled internally. 

“What do you w-want Klaus?” his sleep scratchy voice growled as he tried to push the limpet of a boy off the bed. 

“Well, you know how you’re my favourite brother”. 

“Not true” Diego replied with an eye roll “That t-title definitely goes to B-Ben”. 

“Hmm can’t argue with that” the other boy replied with an apologetic shrug. 

Diego stifled a smile, it was pretty obvious that Ben was the most liked sibling by them all.

“Anyway Diego, dear, I have a favour to ask. Our darling Benny was unfortunate enough to face another of Daddy’s infamous personal training sessions last night” 

Diego’s eyes saddened and lips turned down in sympathy, he had been through enough of those to know it was not an enjoyable experience by any stretch of the imagination. 

“And?” he prompted Klaus, who was distracted, swatting his hands at the empty air above Diego’s left shoulder. Not empty Diego reminded himself, just empty to his eyes. 

“Oh yea” Klaus looked back down at his brother “can you convince Mom let him skip training this morning. Tell Reggie he’s sick or something. For a bit of r and r ya know”. 

“W-why can’t you d-do it?” Diego said feigning reluctance even though they both knew he would do it. 

“I don’t think she’ll believe me after Pogo caught me climbing out the window last week, when I convinced Mom I had life-threatening stomach pains and should be allowed to stay in bed.”

Deigo just sighed “all right then, if you l-leave me alone.”

“Thanks Dee-Dee dear” Klaus said as he patted his cheek and proceed to dance out of the room. 

“Don’t call me that” he called as his eccentric brother darted out the doorway, nearly banging into Mom who was on her rounds to wake them up in time for training. 

The next item to tick off on Klaus’ half-formed plan, was a visit to Allison’s room. 

She was already up and dressed (Mom always did let Diego sleep in a bit longer than the rest of them Klaus grumbled internally) tying back her mass of curls in front of her vanity mirror. 

She caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and turned to greet him as he entered.

“Hey Klaus, what’s up”. 

“Nothing much sis” he grinned as he stood in front of her wardrobe and held up one of her pressed uniform skirts against his waist, “mind if I borrow this?”. 

It was lucky that Allison had hit a growth spurt lately and was the tallest aside from Luther and himself, much to the disgust of Diego and Five.

Allison shrugged, she was used to Klaus raiding her wardrobe. 

“Go for it”. 

Then her eyes narrowed, as she remembered all the times Klaus had declared the tartan pleats a monstrosity and a crime against fashion. 

Klaus smiled slyly at the look on her face.

“Just trying to take a bit of the drabness out of training this morning”. 

Allison, who had seen Ben being dragged out the back door from her window the night before, knew that Klaus was probably trying to take some of Reginald’s heat. Either that, or she was about to get caught up in some wild Klaus and Ben prank shenanigans. 

She rolled her eyes, “just be careful Klaus”. 

“Always, sister dear” he blew her a kiss and headed towards the door. 

“Hold on a sec”. 

Klaus pivoted dramatically back to Allison just in time to snag a small pencil out of the air. 

He looked down at his favourite eyeliner from one of the rare occasions Allison had been feeling unusually tolerant and had taught Klaus how to apply make-up. 

Eyes and grin wide he exclaimed “thanks Allie”, skipping back to his room to get ready. 

He caught sight of Ben, back in his own bed on the way down the hall and gave a cheery wave. Probably a good thing that, old Reginald wouldn’t take too kindly to one of his soldiers not being in their assigned room. 

The smaller boy mouthed his thanks, face showing evident relief. Huh, Diego must have filled him in, maybe he did have more sense than stab Klaus giggled to himself. 

10 minutes and a few accidental pokes in the eye later, Klaus skidded to a stop beside the rest of his siblings (sans Ben) who had congregated at the top of the stairs ready for the orderly march down to the dining room that Dad loved to enforce on his little soldiers

“You’re late Klaus” huffed Luther, ignoring the outfit Klaus was sporting, he had long since given up trying to control his unruly brother. 

Klaus just smiled serenely. 

“Nice dress” Five muttered to him as they descended the stairs. 

“Danke” Klaus exclaimed giving as much of a pirouette as the stairs would allow. 

Apart from Reginald’s reaction to Klaus’ appearance (the purple shade that had bleed into his face was almost worth the knot in Klaus’ stomach when he thought of the extra personal training that had been scheduled as punishment for the next six evenings), the morning’s training passed normally, well as normally as training for 5 super powered 13-year-olds could be. It was combat training, Klaus’ least favourite. Everyone easily bested Klaus, his uncoordinated limbs, lack of combative power and poor focus made him an easy target, not that any of his darling siblings went easy on him. Allison bet Five with a rumour and Luther because he let her, Five bet Diego (he was getting really good at jumping before a knife made contact), Luther bet Five when he miscalculated a jump and Diego bet Luther with a stab that drew enough blood to cut the session short. 

Klaus snuck upstairs in the distraction to avoid both the standard ‘you are a disappointment Number Four’ lecture from Reginald and the creepy eyes of the little girl ghost twins that tend to hang around the training room. 

Ben and Vanya sat in peaceful silence in Ben’s room, both immersed in novels as thick as bricks. 

“How are my two favourite nerds doing thing morning?” Klaus said as he flopped down on the bed, minding the sore area on his side from when Luther had got a swing in during training and laying his head on his brother’s lap, demanding attention. 

“Vanya and I” he emphasised with a chuckle “are well, thank you Klaus”. It released a tension in Klaus he didn’t realise he had to see Ben looking calm and happy after last night, a violence free morning had done him good. 

“You two just need Five to join you and you can have a super-geek threesome in here”. 

That made Vanya’s cheeks light up crimson while Klaus cooed at how sweet little Number Seven was. 

Ben gave him a light whack on the head and demanded he stop corrupting Vanya’s innocence with his hypersexual tendencies.


	3. Chapter 3

Klaus didn’t tell Ben why he had so many extra trainings that week. He didn’t have to. He had seen Klaus’ skirt and make-up (and had given his brother’s hand a squeeze and said ‘you look nice’) and he knew that Klaus had a stupidly strong self-sacrificing streak. 

Seeing Klaus come back from the graveyard behind the mansion a little more broken each night, each day more withdrawn, less flamboyant and carefree, broke something in Ben as well. Every night he would slide into Klaus’ bed. He could never tell what kind of state Klaus would be in, the boy was nothing if not unpredictable. The screams and panic he could deal with, a constant, steady voice and tactility often bought Klaus back to reality but other times when Klaus slipped into silence, eyes darting around the room Ben struggled to anchor him in the world of the living and that’s what terrified him most. 

After the third night of Klaus’ punishment, Ben was recounting the story of how he had walked in on Diego dancing the flamenco in his room, much to Diego’s mortification (partly to provide a steady sound for Klaus to focus on and partly because it really was funny) when he looked up at his brother who was staring intently at him, frustration evident on his face. 

“I…I can’t hear you” he admitted tears running down his face. 

Ben was confused for a second, had Dad done something to mess up his hearing? Then he realised it was the ghosts. They were too loud for Klaus to hear anything else. That didn’t surprise him if he thought about it, Klaus sometimes had trouble focussing because of the cacophony of noise the ghosts produced. The way Klaus had been deteriorating each night, Ben would hazard a guess that more of the dead were following him back into the house from the graveyard after each session. 

A tidal wave of utter helplessness washed over Ben. There was nothing he could do to fix this. 

He just gathered Klaus up in arms pulling him as close as humanely possible. Foreheads touching, a few tears of Ben’s joined the stream flowing down Klaus’ cheeks. 

The week of Klaus’ punishment came with an unexpected silver lining. A very tiny, minuscule thin silver lining to a sky full of thunderous clouds in Ben’s opinion, but a silver lining nonetheless. 

The siblings were, for lack of a better description, softer. It wasn’t as if they disliked each other (maybe with the exception of Luther and Diego who bristled like porcupines just being in the same room as each other), it was more so that open casual affection was not a common thing in the Umbrella Academy. They tended to be guarded around each other, careful not to expose any weakness, afraid it would lower their ranking in the soldier mentality Dad had subconsciously instilled in them. Klaus was the exception to this, always oozing affection. And Five towards Vanya, Ben thought. The only times he had seen any sort of soft emotion from their pragmatic brother had been in Vanya’s presence. 

This change might have been unnoticeable to the casual observer but Ben made a habit of noticing things. 

He saw Diego dump a pile of CD’s on Klaus’ bed when he was in the graveyard one night. Klaus only owned 2 CD’s, preferring to spend any money he happened across on intoxicating substances so the extension of his music collection had him eagerly reaching for his battered old Walkman. 

On Saturday, in the time between training finishing and dinner, Ben was about to ask Klaus if he wanted to play cards when he heard excited giggles from Klaus’ room. He poked his head around the door and saw Allison painting Klaus’ fingers and smiled to himself at the happiness on his brother’s face. 

And then, on the last day of Klaus’ punishment, he watched as Luther looked as if we were going to push Klaus off the wall he was struggling to get over as part of a training obstacle course. But then he stopped. Maybe it was the pitiful way that Klaus was staggering and swaying from a combination of weed, several deep swigs of stolen vodka from Dad’s top cabinet and just plain old exhaustion that made Luther think twice. But he offered his hand out to his brother, his super strength making easy work of hauling the other boy over the wall. 

“Good work Number One” Reginald’s voice boomed through his megaphone “no individual is stronger than the collective”. 

Huh maybe Luther hadn’t turned a page after all, Ben thought as he turned and saw his biggest brother preening at Dad’s praise.


	4. Chapter 4

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for life to go back to normal after the week of Klaus’ punishment. Training was just as repetitive, lessons just as tedious, missions just as draining and personal training sessions just as traumatic as normal. The out-of-character kindness that Klaus had felt from his siblings during that week had long since flown out the window. 

It was a fairly normal night for Klaus, he and Ben had been sitting up on the roof of the academy (in a position where they knew the security cameras couldn’t see them) in content silence. Watching ordinary people winding up their day in the warm summer air was a peaceful activity. 

Klaus offered Ben a drag of his joint but the other boy shook his head. Ben didn’t try to control or berate him for the drugs and the drink, he was good like that, knew Klaus needed it to cope. He avoided the it himself though, he had once whispered something in the deep of the night about being afraid of losing control of Them, so Klaus never questioned it but always offered in case he changed his mind. 

Sometime later, Ben turned to look at his brother one eyebrow slightly quirked. Klaus replied with a small smile and shake of his head. With that Ben heaved himself up ruffled his brother’s curls, said goodnight and headed back through the small attic window which they used as their roof access. 

It was one of those nights where Klaus knew sleep was a long way off, he was too unsettled, too restless, thrumming as Ben always described these moods, the word making Klaus snort. 

Once the view across the neighbourhood had been lost to the blackness of the night, Klaus grew bored and headed inside. He passed Diego on his way in as he padded down the stairs and out the front door, both boys giving a curt nod to the other. Klaus briefly wonder what Diego had been getting up to so late after lights out. 

Klaus didn’t really have a location in mind, he just didn’t want to stay cooped up in the torture house and the ghosts were minutely less overwhelming in the open air. He didn’t have any money left. Reginald had moved his cash after the last time he took a wad of it from the false bottom in his desk drawer and Klaus was yet to find the new stash location. 

He ran into one of the guys he normally bought from in the alley behind Griddy’s. They sat on the dumpster and passed a cheap bottle of whiskey back and forward, as the dealer carried on his business. He’s one of the good ones Klaus thought. 

The people Klaus met on the street were easily divisible into good and bad. The good ones had just gotten off track at one point or another. They had left mainstream society either by choice or by force but either way usually running from something. They were the ones who kept an eye out for someone like Klaus, they’d slip him a joint or make sure he didn’t pass out anywhere he was unlikely to wake up. The bad kind looked out for someone like Klaus for other reasons. 

When Griddy’s dealer (he really needs to learn his name) closed up shop for the night, Klaus let his feet lead the way, enjoying the swishing sounds the tassels on his skirt made as he walked into the night.


	5. Chapter 5

Diego woke early the next morning to the sound of retching in the bathroom. He knew it would be Klaus, it was far from the first time Klaus had stumbled in drunk (or worse) in the small hours of the morning, sentenced to spend the time till wake up with his head over the toilet seat. So Diego wasn’t concerned. He didn’t do concern or worry. Well, so he told himself anyway. He flopped his head back down on the pillow. Klaus could take care of himself. Couldn’t he? Maybe he should go take a look. If only to take some karmatic joy in seeing Klaus face the consequences of a night out. Maybe throw a few insults his way. Yea, that’s why he was dragging himself out of bed, Diego thought to himself.

The sight that greeted him was not what he expected. Klaus was faced away from the bathroom door but his shirt had been ripped across the back enough that Diego could make out the what would soon be impressive bruises littering his back. There were a few smears of blood on the floor, but Diego was unable to discern the source from his viewpoint and Klaus was shaking with much more vigour then his normal tremor and made a small whimpering sound as he wiped some bile from around his mouth. 

Diego stood in the doorway for a few seconds. He probably should do something he thought. But he just headed back to his room a feeling of disgust washing over him. Whether it was directed towards Klaus or whoever had done this to him he wasn’t sure. 

Crawling back into bed, he pulled the cover over his head keen to get in a bit more shut eye. Sleep never did come though and he was still awake when Mom knocked on his door, he grunted in response.

“Good morning, Diego. Did you sleep well, dear?”, she opened the door with a cheerful smile. 

“Hey Mom. Yea-“

Their conversation was stopped short when they both stopped to listen to the yelling that had suddenly erupted. 

“What the fuck Klaus. You promised you wouldn’t let that happen again. You said you would be careful”.

Diego was taken aback a bit, he could count the number of times that he had Ben raise his voice or cursed on one hand, so both at the same time was even more surprising. 

Klaus just groaned, barely audible from Diego’s room.

A few seconds later, he heard a door slam. 

Breakfast was a surprisingly quiet affair that morning, given that usually when Reginald didn’t join them, the siblings tended to go silly with the sense of freedom that came with been able to talk at the dining room table. 

But this morning, even Luther, who had all the observation skills of a blind snail, Diego thought to himself, seemed to notice the red, puffiness of Ben’s eyes and the scarf wound around Klaus’ neck, eccentric even for Klaus in the middle of summer. 

Klaus tried to compensate for the silence by talking too much, as per usual. His voice a little too loud, the tone a little off and his normal boisterous movements limited by what Diego guessed was stiff limbs. 

The awkwardness meant he was grateful when the bells signalling a mission went off. 

Less than 20 minutes later they were huddled around the side of an office block. There was an ongoing hostage situation inside, and law enforcement was yet to make a move, still trying to sort their shit Diego thought with an eye roll, he could do so much better.

Luther was giving out instructions although Diego only paid them half a mind. They had done this enough by now, they knew what to do. And anyway it was unlikely he was going to follow whatever stupid plan Luther had come up with. He looked across the circle at Klaus, who looked like he could throw up at any second. He then looked to Five who was on his right-hand side. He suspected that his brother was as bored as he was with Luther’s plan as he was. So, it came as no surprise when he jumped off with a flash of blue light in the middle of Luther’s sentence. Diego was the first to follow. 

He was swinging himself up to the first-floor window when he heard Luther growl.

“I’m Number One, they have to listen to me”. 

This was followed by a small sigh; its owner could have been any of the other three remaining siblings. 

The mission went by the book, efficient enough to save them from one of Dad’s nightmarishly long lectures and set a new highest kill rate smashing the old record threefold. The Umbrella Academy did actually could fight cohesively when required, missions were the only time this sort of coordination and comradery was evident amongst their ranks. 

Luther and Five notched up two kills each. Ben, Allison and Diego had each taken out one of the heavily armed men (must to Diego’s annoyance since it had been his knives that had slowed down the other criminals enough for Luther and Five to easily take them). The former when he saw a guy sneak up unnoticed behind Luther with a gun aimed at his broad back, and The Horrors came out roaring without any conscious instruction from the boy in which they resided. 

Klaus stumbled in as Diego was releasing the hostages from their cuffs by throwing handfuls of knives at the same time, all spinning off in different directions. Probably didn’t do much for their nerves but it was fun. 

“Huh neat trick” Klaus grinned at him “You sh-“

Whatever smart ass remark was about to come out of Klaus’ mouth was cut short as he took in the room. 

There was a reason beyond Klaus’ shit combat skills that meant he was always on look-out duty and Diego was reminded of that now.

No one paid him much attention as he sunk down to the ground, horror clear on his face as his breath came out in fast shallow pants. Diego thought he caught the words ‘so angry’ around the choked breathes. The one person who would normally console Klaus was trying to stifle his sobs in the other corner of the room and probably wasn’t aware of much else going on. 

Luther huffed and roughly threw Klaus over his shoulder. 

“Jeez, it’s not like you’re the one who had to actually kill them”. 

Diego saw Five put a gentle hand on Ben’s back, and with that the Umbrella Academy headed back to the van parked a few streets over. They were met with an unimpressed look from Dad and utter relief from Vanya. Diego saw her and Five share a look and exchange a few small hand gestures that made him look twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. He had no idea what to make of that but was too tired to put any more thought in it. 

At least the press didn’t get there in time to catch the heroes of the day. The Umbrella Academy would not have put on a great show Diego thought as he eyed his two crying brothers in the backseat.


	6. Chapter 6

It had not been a great day for Klaus. 

Things had turned sour around midnight, when he came out of one of the raves on the dodgier side of town who didn’t check ID’s, although he was lucky that he was tall enough to pass for more than his 13 years. Even these bored and underpaid bouncers probably wouldn’t let him in if they knew his true age. 

The night had been a bit of a blur. He had pilfered a few more drinks and a friendly looking girl with pink hair had rolled him a joint as they leaned up against a wall. Klaus was revelling in the numbness when seemingly out of nowhere, a burly guy was getting ready to taking a swing at him.

The man laughed at Klaus’ squawk. 

“Just what I would expect from a sissy girl like you”.

Klaus looked up at him from the ground. This wasn’t good. He knew this guy’s type. He looked to his left and saw pink-haired girl wasn’t here anymore. 

Klaus wished he could feel his limbs a bit better and that he wasn’t so sluggish when the man dragged him up by the neck. Klaus tried to put up a fight, he really did but the time the guys had him up against the wall in a deeper darker part of the alley he knew there was no help for it and let himself go numb. 

He wasn’t sure how or when he made it back to the Academy. 

His first cohesive memory was of Ben yelling. Maybe that broke through because Ben never got angry, and especially not with Klaus. But he was angry now and Klaus knew why even if it did kind of confused him. Because the other time this had happened Ben had been sweet and gentle He had cleaned him up, and snuggled up with him in bed and made him make a fuck load of promises to stay away from dark empty places, to stay lucid enough to run away and to never ever let them do this to you again, please Klaus. It must be the broken promises that were making Ben angry. Man, Klaus had royally fucked up. 

When he heard the mission bells ringing out, Klaus just knew this day wasn’t going to get any better. 

He had a few serious complaints to make to management (aka Dad) about the exponential increase in the rate of kills going on around here these days. Surely, they could just knock the bad guys out or tie them up or something, did they really have to kill them? But the complaints fell on death ears and Klaus was not surprised when 9 very very angry ghosties joined his usual troupe in the aftermath of the mission. 

Murdered ghosts were always filled with rage. Fresh murdered ghosts killed by his siblings were especially pissed-off. Their wordless screams joining together, feeding off one another anger. The straw that broke the camel’s (well, Klaus’) back was a messed-up guy, barely anything holding him together, who’s full force of anger was directed at Ben. 

Klaus let himself fall into blackness for the second time that morning.

It was getting dark outside when he came groggily back to consciousness. He felt like he hadn’t been asleep but there was a complete blank spot in his memories as if he had. Someone must’ve slipped his Walkman onto his ears. He suspected it was the same person who was rubbing his arm soothingly. He rolled over with a groan. Ben was sitting cross-legged by Klaus’ head with a book in his lap. But Klaus could tell he wasn’t actually reading it. He closed the book and looked down at Klaus. 

“Hi”. Well Klaus figured Ben said hi from the movement of his lips, he didn’t actually hear it over the music in his ears which did a poor job in disguising the other noises in the room Klaus was trying not to think about. 

“Hey”

Something niggled at the edge of Klaus’ fuzzy mind. 

“Aren’t you mad at me?”

A confusing mix of emotions passed across Ben’s face before he shook his head and started speaking. It didn’t take him long to realise Klaus wasn’t following. 

He shook his head again and then gestured to the room. 

Bad?

Klaus shrugged. 

“You okay?” 

Ben just shrugged in return. 

Klaus shifted around so his head was in brother’s lap and closed his eyes. 

Ben went back to rubbing his soothing patterns.


	7. Chapter 7

“Fuck” 

The sudden interruption to what had previously been the peaceful quiet of Five’s chalk scratching against the chalkboard and the ruffle of sheets as Vanya sorted through sheet music, tapping out some of the notes with her fingers, made Vanya jump. 

She turned around to face her brother with a raised eyebrow. 

He was glaring furiously at a jumble of numbers in front of him. Vanya had long since given up hope of trying to understand Five’s work. Even after he had somewhat patiently (well for him, anyway) tried to explain the very basics of metaphysics several times to her. 

Lately Five had been developing an obsession with time travel, so Vanya had to admit she was slightly relieved that things were evidently not working out well for her brother judging from his outburst just now. The idea kind of scared her a bit. 

“It’s Klaus and Ben”, he replied to her unvoiced question gesturing at the equations. 

That confused her. She and Five had been talking a lot lately about the two boys but she didn’t quite see how that connected to the numbers Five was pointing it. 

He sighed a little when Vanya didn’t comprehend, and she kicked herself for annoying him, even know she knew Five would reprimand her if he knew what she was thinking. He was constantly berating her for thinking she wasn’t worth his time, even though Vanya couldn’t quite convince herself sometimes of that. 

He must’ve seen some of that on his face, and his face softened. 

“It’s probabilities” he explained. 

“Klaus and Ben, they are not going to make it. At the current rate of decline, emotionally and physically, there is only a 7% chance that they both survive to adulthood”. 

He said it in an emotionless, detached voice but Vanya knew him well enough to catch the emotion behind the statement. 

She was shook. Even though she couldn’t quite comprehend how that mess of numbers were basically predicting her brother’s deaths she trusted Five implicitly. She knew that he believed what he said and that was enough for her. And besides she had witnessed the undeniable downward spiral that Klaus and Ben had been going through lately so it was definitely far from a surprise. 

She looked up at Five, tension evident in his body. As much as he took an aloof approach to interactions with his siblings apart from her, Vanya knew he cared more then he would ever let on.

“What can we do?” she whispered.

Five looked back at her. 

“I don’t know yet, but we have to do something”, he replied his voice wobbling ever so slightly. 

Over the next few weeks, Vanya had never been more grateful for that one-track mind that her brother had. They spent late nights in one of their rooms, getting around after lights out was easy when one of them could teleport. Vanya never saw Five without a notebook and pen, she had even seen him come out of the bathroom with it, he scribbled equations so furiously that Vanya vaguely worried he would give himself RSI.

They observed Ben and Klaus during the day and reported back to each other with their findings, and discussed little and big things they could do to help their brothers and then Five would do the maths. 

Despite the morbidity and the jolt of panic that rippled through Vanya whenever she though too much about the situation, she revelled at feeling useful and valued and was becoming addicted to the appreciative nod Five gave her whenever she gave him a particularly good insight. 

They made progress. They developed a multi-step plan and started to action it. But it still wasn’t enough. Every time Five reran the probabilities they couldn’t get the chance of their brother’s death as low as either of them were comfortable with. 

One night Vanya was flipping through a self-help book about dealing with phobia, in the hope she might come across something they could use to help the boys when Five smashed his fist against the wall. 

Vanya immediately leapt up from her spot on the ground and went over to the bed where Five had been standing writing on the wall. 

“What, what is it?” she asked him, panic clear in her tone. 

That panic accelerated when Five turned to look at her tears in his eyes. A sight that she had seen very few times in her 13 years. 

“What if I fail? What if we can’t save them. Klaus and Ben can’t die. They can’t. But they will”. Five cried, his breath short and fast.

He was still standing looking at the wall, his shoulders moving up and down way too fast. 

Vanya grabbed his hand lightly and pulled him down to the bed so they were both sitting. She longed to hug him but she knew that he didn’t react well to unexpected physical contact, a by-product of his powers, he didn’t like to be tied down, unable to jump. 

She did keep a hand in his though. 

“Hugh, look at me. Look at me please.” 

It wasn’t often that Vanya used his name. Her brother had resolutely refused when on their 10th birthday, Mom had gifted them each with a name (much to the disapproval of Reginald). He claimed that he already had a perfectly functioning name thanks very much, although he couldn’t hide a smile at the delight evident on his sibling’s faces as they sounded out their own new names. 

Vanya had thought at the time there might be something more to Five’s claim but she didn’t press it. Then a few months later out of nowhere, Five had told her his real name. Said his birth Mom had named him. Vanya was shocked when he said he remembered her a little. Something to do with the time and space nature of his powers she guessed, or maybe it was just his genius brain. He had said that accepting whatever name Grace (and suddenly it made sense why he always referred to her as Grace instead of Mom) had felt wrong. 

The use of the name jerked Five out of the breakdown that was ensuing. 

“We will save them, Hugh, I promise” Vanya said with a certainty she didn’t feel. 

Five stared at her and to Vanya’s absolute shock he threw himself at her. She wrapped her arms around the sobbing heap of her brother. She was terrified, she had never seen Hugh like this. 

They stayed like that. Two scared kids holding each other in the night.


	8. Chapter 8

The 14th birthday celebrations of the Hargreeves siblings could only be described as lacklustre, thought Ben as he lay in bed watching his alarm clock tick over at midnight. 

It wasn’t like they were used to any kind of big celebration. Dad, as usual, didn’t acknowledge the event. But every year for as long as he could remember Mom had presented them with a huge cake after dinner, and sung happy birthday in her sweet, clear voice. Ben reckoned Pogo must have inputted it into her programming because he was very sure Dad didn’t. After that, they were allowed to stay up after the normal curfew.

Normally, this meant that the seven siblings were abuzz with excitement, the deviation from their strict schedule and diet plan a welcome delight. They would consume as much cake as their small bodies could physically hold and then ride the sugar high through games of hide and seek or tag, stifling giggles so as not to disrupt Dad. The last couple of years, Mom had taken to surprising them with a movie as well. She would put a videotape in a small TV and the siblings would pile in front of it, a mess of blankets and limbs, eyes and mouths wide with wonder and awe. 

Maybe it was just him but their birthday just didn’t seem as magic. Dad had amped up their training regime lately and they all (with the exception of Vanya) were having private training sessions each week. This, combined with an increase in mission frequency meant that they were bone-tired and not really in the mood for celebration. Or maybe they had just outgrown it. 

Klaus, Vanya and Five had both bought him a present though which was nice, even though it made him feel a little guilty in the case of the latter two as he hadn’t thought to get them anything. Klaus had slipped a little octopus soft-toy into his hand with a big grin and Vanya and Five had given him a fancy pen with his name engraved and a bag of toffees. He didn’t like to think about where either of them had got the money (or probably in Klaus’ case hadn’t got the money). For Klaus, he had gotten a little ball that lit up when it bounced. He had seen it on the ground in the crowd during a post-mission interview and made a dive for it mid-sentence, slipping into his back pocket before anyone saw. He felt a little bad about taking it but it’s not like he had any money and very rarely got out of the Academy except on missions.

Klaus had slipped the light-up ball in his back pocket and Ben prayed to whatever gods might be listening that having something to stave off the darkness would help Klaus when he was locked in the mausoleum each week. 

Ben’s own training wasn’t going so well either. Dad had taken to bringing in flocks of animals (Ben had no idea where he got them); cows, goats, horses, testing how long it took for The Horror to rip them to shreds. Ben hated every minute of it. The blood always soaked him head to toe and he felt as though no matter how many times he scrubbed himself clean in scalding hot water, he couldn’t get rid of a faint sense of death on his skin. He had definitely gone off meat these days too. 

From Diego’s bleeding hands, Allison’s hoarse voice and Luther’s shaking arms when he tried to use a knife and fork, after their designated private training days, Ben guessed the others didn’t have it easy either. The only one of his non-ordinary siblings who seemed unaffected by the new training sessions was Five, who was as imperturbable as ever. 

A flash of blue light at the end of his bed made him jump. Speak of the devil. 

“Vanya, you’re elbowing me”, he heard from the pile of body he could just make out at the end of his bed. 

“Sorry, sorry” came the reply.

“It worked better than last time!” Vanya said with far more joy than Ben was used to hearing in her voice. 

“Yeah, I don’t feel so good though, my recovery time needs to get faster” Five replied. 

“Guys?” Ben said, did they not realise it was, in fact, his bed that they were sitting on having this discussion?

“Ben” Five acknowledged, Ben could imagine the small nod of his head he would be able to see if it wasn’t dark. 

“Hi Ben”, Vanya said a little shyly. 

Then Ben’s brain started ticking. Wait a second. Five, he was used to him jumping into his room unannounced but Vanya? Either she had developed teleporting skills as well or…

“You can jump with other people” Ben exclaimed. 

“Meh kind of, I’ve been practising with Vanya”

“Does Dad know?”

Five just snorted. He had been one of the first to recognise that being a perfect soldier for Dad wasn’t all that it cracked up to be, he kind of just did his own thing, so when Ben thought about it he wasn’t surprised that the boy hadn’t told Dad about a new power. 

Ben nodded, although he was pretty sure his two siblings couldn’t actually see his face. 

“We were kind of hoping Klaus would be here. We’ve got another birthday present for you guys.” Vanya said. 

“Huh”, Ben eloquently replied. If it wasn’t for Vanya’s involvement, he would just about think this was some kind of prank. Two presents in one day was far more kindness then he would have ever expected from any of the Umbrella Academy kids, outside of their natural pairings.

“Where is he?”, Five demanded impatiently. 

“Um, probably on the roof”, it was around the time of night that Klaus went out but he knew his brother would check in on him before he left to do god knows what. He always did. Came in and made sure Ben was tucked in. Ben always closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep but he never was. Some stupid voice in the back of his brain told him to stay awake for it, just in case something bad happened when Klaus was out and it would be the last time he saw him. 

“I’ll go get him” Five barely finished his sentence before he was gone in a flash of blue. 

Less than 10 seconds later he was back. 

“Woah that was trippy” Ben heard Klaus’ voice somewhere beside him, a slight slur to his words. 

“Get the fuck off me, Klaus”, Five grunted and shoved. 

Ben received a lapful of Klaus. 

“Benny!” Klaus exclaimed, “you’re here too”.

“We’re in my bed dipshit”, Ben replied with a grin. 

“Anyone else coming to the party? Or is it just an exclusive ass-end of the Academy get together” Klaus giggled and Numbers Five through to Seven groaned. 

“Shut up Klaus”, Five said as he jumped to get the lights and then back to the bed. The sudden brightness meant Ben could see a grin on his face as he said it. 

“Not that I’m not pleased the birthday celebrations are continuing but I am a little confused about what’s going on,” Klaus said as he danced Ben’s new octopus toy up and down his arm. 

“Vanya care to explain present number 1 since it was your idea” Five said, sending a blush flaring across Vanya’s cheeks. 

“Well” she said looking intently at the duvet “Um, I’ve been thinking about how sometimes the Klaus can’t um hear that well because of, you know, the ghosts and-“

“How-“ both Ben and Klaus started. 

“How stupid do you think we are dumbasses” Five interrupted “Ben’s super loud voice and exaggerated mouth movements are pretty hard to miss, of course, we know”. 

Ben couldn’t even bring himself to be embarrassed by that, he was just surprised Five and Vanya had been paying attention enough to notice him trying to help out Klaus on bad days.

Klaus just chuckled “Yea, trying to help me lip read kind of makes Ben look like a cute little goldfish”

He reached up and patted Ben’s cheek. 

“Anyway” Five said cueing Vanya. 

“I came up with the idea of learning sign language” she said an excited little smile on her face. 

“Vanya and I have been practising and we’ve gotten pretty good. We should be able to teach you guys if you want” Five interjected. 

Klaus and Ben just nodded, grins wide. The temporary spans of deafness were one of the worst parts of Klaus’ powers. For Klaus, because it made him feel like he was tipping over the edge into the world of the dead when he couldn’t hear the alive one and for Ben, because of the utter sense of helplessness it invoked in him to have his brother so near but so far away. 

Ben kicked himself for not think of this earlier. 

“Can we start now?” Klaus asked, excitement making him jittery

Five chuckled a little and Vanya’s posture straightened- she looked proud, Ben realised with a startle. It wasn’t something he had seen on his sister. It suited her. 

They spent the next few hours going through the alphabet letters, bursting into hysterical laughter when Klaus spelt out rude words, the weirdness of a giggling Five spurring on the laughter.

It turned out to be a surprisingly good birthday afterall, Ben thought as he eventually drifted off to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Things had been getting better. Until they got worse. Way worse. 

Five wasn’t surprised, he could try all he liked but flawless plans and logical equations couldn’t overcome that terrible Umbrella Academy luck. 

He had dedicated the last two years to doing everything he could to protect his siblings. He had to, they had no one else and he was strong enough to do it. And it had been working. 

Klaus’ personal training wasn’t nearly as bad when Five could teleport in to sit with him and sign to him over and over that he was okay, he wasn’t alone. And now, Five had gotten good enough at jumping with other people he could get Klaus out of the mausoleum and back before Reginald noticed. He even had started trying to work with Klaus to help him push the ghosts away. They hadn’t had much success yet, but the hope in Klaus’ face was enough for Five to throw everything he could into coming up with new strategies. 

Helping out Ben was a bit harder. But between him and Klaus, they had tried to learn about The Horrors. They learnt that when They felt calm and comfortable and loved, They were less likely to strike out and rip and roar. Biology had never been an area of huge interest to Five, but the day that They picked him up and squeezed him in a soft hug while Ben giggled at Five’s involuntary squeal, had changed his mind on the subject matter. Five always made sure to get to the basement just before the start of Ben’s personal training sessions. The frustration on Reginald’s face when the animals disappeared before he got there always made him chortle. 

He had discovered a while ago, that there was nothing that Reginald could really do to stop him, he could literally just jump away. His solo jumps were faster, more accurate and with more range then he had ever had and it didn’t even strain him when had to jump with five of his siblings when a mission went wrong (moving flocks of large mammals had been good practise). 

He had even been able to help out Allison, which surprised Five. Allison had always been comfortable enough with her powers and Five had thought she had a pretty decent grasp of them as well. But one day Klaus came skidding into her room, excitable and jabbering on about fuck knows what, interrupting a movie audition recording she was filming in her room. In her frustration, she had screamed at him. 

“I wish you would just fucking disappear, Klaus”. 

And he had. 

It had taken a long time to calm her down enough to even explain what had happened. And by then they realised they could hear Klaus even if they couldn’t see him. The three of them talked for a long time once she rumoured Klaus back to visibility. Five was shocked at just how far her powers were able to bend reality. And without using the rumour wording Reginald had always insisted on too. It made Five wonder. Maybe Reginald knew just how powerful she was but had never told her because he was scared. He wouldn’t be surprised. He made a mental note to think about what this could mean for the rest of them. Over the next few months, he had gently helped Allison work her way through textbook after textbook on contract law. He thought if maybe she learnt how to word things exactly and precisely, there would be less danger of the Klaus incident as they referred to it, happening again. 

Things got better for Vanya as well. Although Five knew that was more her than him. He had always known she was so very capable and intelligent, but as they grew closer with their siblings, he saw that same respect and appreciation he felt towards her reflected in Klaus and Ben and even Allison and Diego sometimes. She flourished in this, grew more confident, less reserved and unsure of herself. This made Five smile the most. 

He hadn’t been able to get very far with Numbers One and Two, they were tough nuts to crack, but he wasn’t too bothered by it. Luther and Diego were the least affected by their powers and abusive upbringing and besides he had his hands full with his other siblings. 

Five was surprised at how much joy he got from helping his siblings. He had always been well aware of his flaws and had long since accepted that he was selfish person in the same way that he knew that he had a bit of a fucked up moral compass (which did come in handy when he was not in the slightest bit bothered to take the kills in missions to keep his siblings hands clean and sleep less nightmare filled).

When he mentioned it to Vanya, she just laughed. 

“You’re not selfish Hugh, you never have been. You’re just pragmatic.” 

He wasn’t so sure, maybe his selfishness had just extended to include his siblings. 

The final ‘to do’ on the plan that Five and Vanya had made all that time ago was starting to form. 

Five had been pilfering money off Reginald for years, selling antiques, stealing cash. He had also been stealing off other people too, it was easy when you could teleport. He only took from bad people who didn’t deserve the money, figured that was morally acceptable (although he never told Vanya about it). Rapists became his favourite to steal from, even if they didn’t always have as much cash, once Klaus accidentally let slip about things that had happened to him out on the streets. It didn’t hurt that he could usually get in a few good punches at the same time. 

When he was sure he had saved enough, he told Ben and Klaus what he and Vanya had planned. 

Seeing his two brothers holding hands, dancing around the room, Vanya hiccupping from laughing too much, cash flying all around the place, and ridiculous décor plans for their future apartment being schemed, Five was the happiest he had ever been.

He should have known it would never be that easy.

The maths didn’t lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've already planned out and started the next few chapters and am so excited to get my ideas down!! So hang tight, shouldn't be too far away. 
> 
> On another note, please excuse any typographical or grammar errors that I'm sure riddle this piece. I wasn't exactly planning on posting this and haven't been putting too much stock into proof reading just been trying to get words down on paper. I hope it doesn't distract too much from the story.


	10. Chapter 10

For the sixth time of the meal, Vanya covered the slight crackle of Five’s arrival with an (extremely awkward) obnoxious cough.

He shook his head slightly when Vanya looked at him, eyebrows raised in a question.

Vanya saw Ben’s shoulders droop out of the corner of his eye.

It made her feel uneasy that they were seated around the table like any normal dinner, while Klaus’ seat sat empty and unexplained.

It wasn’t as though Klaus’ absence was completely out of character. He did tend to disappear for long periods of time. But that was usually always at night. And never at dinner time. Klaus was often nutty sure, but he wasn’t one to voluntarily sign up for extra punishment.

At Vanya and Ben’s discreetly signed suggestions, Five had checked all of Klaus’ usual spots, to no avail. He wasn’t even locked in the mausoleum.

Vanya could sense the agitation rolling off Five in waves, but it still startled her when he venomously he shoved his steak knife into the wooden panels of the table.

“Where’s Klaus?” he demanded, five sets of eyes turning to him.

“You know the rules Number Five, you will not speak at the table”.

Dad didn’t even look up from his plate.

Vanya reached out to grab Five’s arm in warning but it was too late, he had already jumped to the other end of the table where their adopted father was sitting.

“What have you done with him” Five growled.

“Number Four has an extra training session this evening. Not that it is any of your business.”

“Like hell it isn’t”

Five’s face curls up in disgust as he spins on his heel away from Reginald and pulls his fists up in a move Vanya has seen enough times to know he is about to jump.

And then instead of the blue light she would follow, Five just freezes, looks down at his hands. He tries again with a grunt. Still no shimmering blue light. He struggles again. And again.

“Ah, I am saddened this day has arrived, Number Five”.

Five turned back towards Reginald face dripping with enough pure hatred, that Vanya recoiled even though it wasn’t directed at her. And then Five’s fist connected with Reginald’s check with a dull thud.

Reginald just sighed and rose up dusting off his spotless suit pants, no reaction to the punch.

“Number One, would you please escort Number Five”.

To Luther’s credit he did look conflicted as he looked between the brisk march of their father as he exited the dining room and Five’s livid expression.

But he just threw Five over his shoulder with a muttered apology and proceeded after his father.

Vanya saw panic creep into Five’s eyes as his jumps continued to fail him. He had never been so trapped as he was right then in his brother’s arms.

She was panicking too, if the sound of the blood pumping in her ears was anything to go by. What had dad done? Why couldn’t Five jump? Where was Klaus?

He caught her eye and signed _Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay. You guys find Klaus._

\------

Klaus had long since given up any semblance of holding himself together. It had been too long since he had come to, alone in the mausoleum. Not his mausoleum, he absently noted to himself as he looked around the slightly bigger, more rectangular crypt, but still just as bad.

_Where was Five?_

It had been years since he had to do this by himself. His brother’s impeccable timing meant he had company normally exactly four seconds after Reginald clicked the padlock. Klaus knew because he counted each second. But he had been counting for a while now.

_1802, 1803, 1804…_

He had managed to keep the ghosts a short distance away for a while, Five would have been impressed with his efforts. But he was tired now.

_Where was Five?_

The ghosts were closing in on him. Their numbers increasingly exponentially, drawn to the one living being who could see them. Their rotting, mangled corpses, some missing limbs, others spewing intestines from their stomachs were an assault on the senses, but had nothing on the noise. Klaus had never experienced anything so deafeningly loud. He put his hand on his chest to keep count of the time. That was important even if he couldn’t remember why right now.

_1867, 1868, 1869…_

And then he felt a searing pain for just a second, and six lights became five.

Klaus had never been able to explain this part of his power to anyone, he wasn’t sure if he could even if he wanted to. But for as long as he could remember, he could sort of sense his siblings, their life-force he would say if he had to guess. They were flaring balls of light and energy and he could distinguish each one, Luther big and flashy, Ben steady and warm. It wasn’t very useful as far as powers go, but his powers had always been far from that. At least this it was kind of practical when missions took a sideways turn and he had to reassure himself everyone was still okay. Klaus thought about it a lot and he often took comfort in counting the little balls of light.

Well, until now. From one second to the next, Five’s bright, clear light had disappeared, leaving nothing but blackness. He was gone.

_Where was Five?_

And Klaus lost it. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see and he couldn’t hear. Screams coursed through his body, the sound drowned out by the myriad of deathly howls around him. An unconscious convulsion meant his head rammed up against the cold concrete wall. The feeling of pain anchored him, gave him something to hold onto. So he did it again. And again. And again.

_2034, 2035, 2036…_

And then it was quiet.


	11. Chapter 11

Diego wasn’t all that sure what he had just witnessed. He said as much. 

“What the fuck”. 

No one paid him any attention. The chaos that had shattered what should have been another stupidly boring dinner had left a thick layer of nearly palpable shock in the room. 

He threw the knife he was still holding from dinner to add to the chaos, because why not? He grinned a little grimly when it lodged itself in the ceiling. 

Allison rolled her eyes at him. 

“Ben, Vanya, care to give us some insight?” she asked. 

Number Six and Seven looked shell-shocked. He couldn’t really blame them. Seeing Five unable to teleport, something the smug little bastard had been doing since birth was definitely weird. Especially because he had been at it all through dinner. And then it was like a flick had been switched. Huh, maybe it had- he wouldn’t be surprised if dad had some freaky technology that could do something like that. 

He hadn’t realised he was speaking aloud until the other three turned to look at him. 

Ben groaned and palmed his face. 

“Oh god, what are we going to do” Vanya whispered voice trembling. 

“Dad won’t hurt Five.” Allison said but the tone was too uncertain to reassure her sister. 

“I’ve got to get to Klaus” Ben said resolutely but his eyes filled with tears that didn’t spill as he tried without success to stop the images of what kind of tortures his father was putting Klaus through at that very moment. Diego swore he saw something squirm under Ben’s shirt. Ugh, The Horrors weirded him out. 

“I’ll g-go see what’s happening with F-five” Diego volunteered surprising himself. He might even run into Luther on the way down and get in a few swings. That would make his Tuesday night. 

Ben and Vanya were signing to each other. Ugh, not this again. They had been at this for years, he didn’t know why they didn’t just talk normally. He had seen it enough to pick up his own name, even at the frantic speed their hands were currently moving at. 

Vanya nodded, a small nod. 

“I’ll come with you”. 

Allison was saved from making a decision when Dad re-entered the room, Luther trailing behind him like a puppy dog. Diego noticed a little remote in Dad’s hand, he must’ve used that to turn off Five’s powers or something. Could powers be turned off? He didn’t think so but maybe made the air super thick or something so Five couldn’t jump. He never really got Five’s powers anyway. 

“Bed” Dad barked and marched off in the direction of his office. 

Diego didn’t even bother with the charade of heading to his bedroom. Once he was out of Dad’s sight he made a beeline for the basement. Diego had been scouting out the depths of the mansion for as long as he could remember, what good was he as a superhero if he didn’t even know his own place, so he had a few ideas of where Dad might have taken Five. The seven (although he was never quite sure why seven) creepy prison cells deep under the Academy were probably a good place to start. 

He was surprised to see Vanya followed him. She was always so soft-spoken and obedient, he never would have picked her as a rule breaker. He turned and gave her a scowl putting his finger to his lip. Although he had to admit she moved with surprising stealth. 

They stuck to the walls and peered around corners as they headed down to the basement. They had a close call with Pogo at one stage but the noise of his cane clicking against the steps gave them enough warning to jump into an unused room. 

Diego was pretty sure the whole route was decked out with surveillance footage though, so he was surprised Dad hadn’t found them yet. Maybe he thought that they didn’t care enough about Five to bother looking. Or maybe a little voice in the back of his mind niggled, Dad doesn’t even care if you find him. 

Diego wasn’t quite sure why he was doing this anyway. Five kind of got himself into this mess, anyway with all that lark about demanding where Klaus was. Sure, Diego didn’t like the idea of Klaus getting even more extra training, but still what could they actually do about. Well except for getting your powers incapacitated and carted off to the depths of the mansion like Five had, he thought darkly to himself. But still, even if Five had been stupid, Diego had an uncomfortable feeling that things weren’t quite right and if everything he had read about superheroes was right, he should trust his instinct. Besides, creeping around at night against Dad’s orders was always a bit of a thrill, even if he had Vanya being all jumpy behind him.

Diego used a small knife to pick the lock on the metal doors, he had once found hidden behind a musty old curtain in the basement.

“We should cl-climb down the shaft. The l-l-lift will be too n-noisy” he whispered to Vanya gesturing towards the rickety one-man lift. 

They both looked down the dark empty abyss. 

Despite her trembles, Vanya nodded. Diego could see her determination in the low light. Five was down there. 

After what felt like forever, Vanya’s feet landed on solid ground. Diego had hesitated at whether to send her first or last, but decided the threat was more likely to come from above than below. Then he kicked himself. This was all orchestrated by Dad, there was no real threat. Was there? 

Still, he gave Vanya’s shoulder an uncharacteristic comforting squeeze as they looked down the long corridor in front of them. 

There was a faint light at the end of it. 

They looked at each other then took off running. There was no point being stealthy now. If they got caught down here they were dead meat for sure. 

Diego arrived a few seconds before Vanya. 

“F-Five?” 

He heard Vanya gasp beside him. 

Five was shackled to a chair behind a thick glass wall. There shackles around Five’s wrist and ankles. On one wall there was a panel with all sorts of gauges and levers. 

Diego took all this in his peripheral but most of his attention was on his brother. He did not look good. Five was visibly shaking, skin slick with sweat and slumped in the chair. 

Five didn’t notice their appearance immediately but when he did he lifted his head up and furrowed his brows in concentration, fists closing into slightly glowing blue palms. 

When he tried to jump the shackles around his arms and legs burned iron hot white and sparks flew off in all directions. A look of pain flashing across Five’s face. Diego was sure that if the glass wasn’t soundproof, he would hear Five howl in pain. He absently thought that this was the first time he’d ever seen Five react to any sort of pain. He hadn’t even cried when he broke his ankle that time when they were six years old and he hadn’t quite mastered his jumps and landed on the bannister of the stairs and tumbled over backwards before anyone could catch him. 

Vanya slowly walked up to the window and put her hands against it. 

“Hugh. Hugh, it’s okay, don’t try jump. You’ll be okay, we will get you out of there. Just don’t try jump”. 

Hugh? Who the hell was Hugh? Had Vanya lost it? 

But it seemed to work. Even though Vanya had used the wrong the name and it was highly unlikely Five could hear her through the glass, they definitely couldn’t hear him, Five didn’t try jump again. It was pretty obvious that wasn’t going to work out well for anybody. Diego could see just how much the last attempt had drained Five from the haggard look on his face, and god knows how many times the stubborn idiot had tried before they got there. 

He just stared at Vanya and then very deliberately mouthed Klaus’ name. 

“No, not yet I’m sorry. Ben is looking” she said her voice slightly cracking at the end. 

Then she realised that even though Five couldn’t use their sign language, because his hands were tied, that she still could. She repeated (well Diego assumed she did anyway) the same thing with her hands. 

A real terror passed across Five’s face, and he started talking. Diego could tell from his face that he was extremely agitated and even scared, a very weird emotion to see on the ever-stoic Five’s face. 

It was no use though. Both Vanya and Diego concentrated on his face trying to decipher the words but neither could make head nor tail of what Five was trying to tell them about Klaus. 

They were interrupted by the noisy creaks of the lift. 

Diego pushed Vanya behind him, and got a knife ready in each hand. 

There were trapped there, there was really nowhere they could go. 

The footsteps along the corridor took an agonisingly long time to reach them. 

Then they were face to face with Reginald. 

Diego had to admit, he was tensed for a fight which surprised him. It was only Dad. But seeing Five like that made him see red and anger bubbled up inside him ready to explode. 

So he was disappointed when Reginald just ordered them to bed in a calm, dry tone. He was after way more fireworks then that. 

Vanya stepped out from behind him. 

“Let him go” she said with more confidence in her tone then Diego had ever heard from her in his whole life. Combined. 

He looked at her impressed. Even angry as he was he knew he would have struggled to do the same, even if he could quite happily picture it in his head. 

Reginald stepped forward with surprising agility for his age, and slapped her across the face. 

It was so unexpected that Diego didn’t even have time to react. Sure, Dad had put them through all sorts of other tortures but he had never personally hit them. 

Vanya let out a cry and crumpled backwards against the glass wall. 

And then suddenly the dim lighting in the room was replaced with swirling, pulsing blue. 

Three sets of eyes turn to Five’s prison. 

Diego can’t even make Five out amongst the blue energy. It hurts his eyes to even look directly into the middle of it where he assumes Five is. 

Then as suddenly as it started, the blue light stops. 

And the cell was empty.


	12. Chapter 12

Ben sat on his bed trying to pull himself together enough to make a plan. 

Dad had stopped Five from being able to jump. 

He had dragged him off somewhere, probably below the basement. Ben remembers when Five had accidentally discovered the rooms down there. Prison cells he had said. Dark and grimy, but with like high-tech equipment. Each one different. Five had made a few short trips down there since, but he never stayed more than a second or two, afraid Dad would pick him up on camera. Five had only told them this in broken whispers and signed words. Said it was probably better Dad didn’t know they knew. 

Vanya was down there. He shuddered. At least she had Diego he thought. Ben felt guilty for not going too. Five had protected them time and time again, he wanted so so badly to do the same for him. 

But Klaus. Klaus was missing. Ben’s breath hitched at the thought. 

Dad said he had personal training but Five had checked the mausoleum behind the house and he wasn’t there. Ben was terrified. Klaus hadn’t gone through personal training alone in years. The last time he had, he had been so close to breaking, resembling the dead that haunted him more than the living, that Ben was worried every passing minute could mean he was getting close to losing his brother. And it had been hours. Far longer than Klaus had ever spent in the mausoleum. 

What if he was already gone? 

No, no it was Klaus. Klaus would be okay. He always was.

The monsters in his torso were rumbling. 

Klaus. Klaus. Klaus. Klaus. Klaus. Where. Find. Him. They hissed at Ben in their unearthly language. 

Ben tried to tell Them he agreed, of course, he wanted to find his brother. But They had never been really good at two way communication. 

He needed a plan. He held the little octopus soft-toy Klaus had got him for his birthday. Bentacles. Focussing on the soft texture allowed him to calm down enough to think. He wrapped his arms around his torso as well. As much as he could feel They were eager to help, he didn’t think their idea of help would be that useful right now.

If Klaus wasn’t in the mausoleum in the small cemetery out the back of the house, surely Dad had taken somewhere with just as many ghostly horrors for his standard torture session, feebly disguised as training. At the only place that had enough ghosts for that had to be a cemetery. 

Ben pulled out a map of the city that Klaus had once bought him back during his atlas phase. It had a few dubious stains on it he wouldn’t have been surprised if Klaus had pulled it out of the trash, but it was still nice nonetheless. None of the books in the library had any local information so Ben had thirstily absorbed the details of the map, at the time. 

He quickly took note of the nearest graveyard, circling it in red, luckily just a couple blocks over and shoved the map in his pocket. 

He was just pondering how to get out of the Academy, maybe he could use Them to help lower him down to the ground from the fifth-floor window, probably less risky than going out the front door because there was no way Dad or Pogo weren’t stalking the hallways right now and getting dragged off like Five wouldn’t help Klaus, when Allison slinked through his door. 

“I’ll help you get out” she said. 

“I can rumour Dad or Pogo if we run into them long enough for you to get out. Only issue would be if we ran into Mom. I’ve never tried but don’t think my rumours work on robots”. 

Ben nodded, gratitude evident in his eyes. 

“Thank you. Have you heard anything about the others?”

She shook her head. 

“Luther told me about where Dad made him take Five. Some creepy dungeon thing.”

“That doesn’t surprise me”. 

“They’ll be okay, Ben, Klaus as well”. 

Ben just nodded. 

“Shall we?” Allison said with a gesture to the door. 

They were on the home straight, the front door in sight, when they heard Mom humming.

Ben groaned internally, could anything possibly go more wrong tonight. 

“Allison, Ben. What are you doing out of bed, my dears? Are you having trouble sleeping? I could make hot chocolate if you would like?” she smiled at them vacantly. 

Ben was trying to stutter out an excuse when Allison interrupted her. 

“Actually Mom, we are worried about Klaus”. 

Ben saw her freeze, in a way that he recognised as her trying to override her programming. 

She did this occasionally. 

He remembers the first time he saw it, they were very young, with just numbers for names. And Klaus had snuck into his bed, shyly mumbling about monsters. Then they had heard Mom’s high-heeled footsteps in the hall, opening the door and coming over to the bed. Him and Klaus had huddled under the duvet terrified they were going to get punished. But she had stood there for so long, Ben had dared peek out above the thick blanket. The look he saw on her then was the same as it was now. 

“Mom?” his younger voice in his memories overlapped with his voice in the here and now. 

The same as she had done the first time, she shook her head a little. 

“Sorry, dears, lost myself for a minute there.”

The first time, she had pressed a soft kiss to his and Klaus’ forehead and walked out humming softly. Both boys sagged in relief that she wasn’t going to tell Dad. 

“You’re going to bring Klaus home” she said, it wasn’t a question. 

“Yea”. 

“Good. This is bad business, very bad indeed. With Five too.”

The sibling just nodded, a little shocked it was the first time they had heard her say anything against Reginald. 

“Be careful” she said and stood on her tiptoes to kiss both of their foreheads just like the first time. 

“Hey, Mom, you don’t happen to know where Klaus is do you” Ben thought he would try his luck. He wouldn’t be surprised if Dad had trackers on them, which Mom could access the data of. 

The ‘does not compute’ look came over her again, and Ben could just about hear the whirring as she tried to override the programming. This went on for a few minutes. 

“It’s okay Mom” he patted her arm. Some things were probably too deeply ingrained in her code for her to push past. 

“You better get going” Allison turned to him. “I’m going to stay here in case the others need help”. 

Ben nodded. At the very least Diego and Vanya had got themselves in for a lifetime of punishment if they were caught trying to help Five. Allison’s rumours would be more useful here, where she could mitigate the damage. 

Although, he was a little surprised she was sticking her neck out for them at all. Diego as well. He knew they cared, but it was a big leap to deliberately defy Dad and risk punishment. The Five incident had really shook them all. And he supposed, he hadn’t really thought about it till now but Allison and Diego are very much teetering on the edge of leaving the Academy for good, the same way Five and Vanya and him and Klaus are. No longer the loyal and obedient soldiers they were growing up. It was easier to rebel when you knew you weren’t going to be sticking around much longer to face the consequences. Huh, he hadn’t really considered any of the others in the glowing warm picture he imagined of life after the Academy, but it would be nice to have them around. Maybe they would all leave together once they got through this mess. Well almost all, there was no way they could drag Luther away. 

“Go find him” she said as she near tackled Ben into a hug. 

\---------- 

Ben barely made his out onto the street when his world erupted. 

The Horrors ripped free of any semblance of control he ever had of Them. 

More than he had ever seen of Them, thrashed out into the air, wailing like a grieving animal. 

Klauuusss. Dead. Dead. Dead. 

This was all at the edge of Ben’s attention. 

His main focus was on the pain. 

Searing, searing pain. 

He screamed. 

The part of his torso that housed Them was torn wider and wider, as they Flung out, unconcerned about Their host in the grief. 

Blood. There was so much blood. 

Pain. So much pain. 

And then a loud crack. Ben felt it just above his abdomen. And then the pain was gone. So was any sensation below the point of the crack. 

Ben knew that should probably worry him but the moment of clarity allowed him to connect the dots. 

He wailed along with Them. 

One pain replaced with another kind of pain.

The blood pooling around him was warm. 

There was darkness at the edge of his vision. 

The last thing he heard was Vanya’s scream. Haunting. 

And then Diego’s whisper. So so lost. 

“Not you too”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry. Three (kind of) deaths in three chapters. Fluffier times coming I promise.


	13. Chapter 13

When Klaus came to, the first thing he noticed was dry, crusted blood in his hair and on his neck. He ran his hand over his skull. There was no injury, the skin completely healed.

He had talked to a girl. He knew who she really was but he didn’t like to think about that too much. She wanted him to leave. He kind of wanted to stay. Five was gone. But he didn’t put up too much protest. He thought of his siblings. They couldn’t lose both him and Five in one day. Ben, especially, he wouldn’t survive it.

Ben. Klaus searched for Ben’s light inside him out of habit. There was nothing. He searched harder, panicking. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The warm comforting ball of light was gone.

“Klaus. How… what… you’re alive” a voice, oh so familiar, breathed above him.

But he didn’t open his eyes. It couldn’t be Ben. Ben was gone. Five was gone. He was alone.

He didn’t realise he was screaming until the Ben voice was yelling at him over the screams.

“Klaus. Klaus. Can you hear me? It’ll be okay. Please open your eyes. Please Klaus”.

Klaus refused. Involuntary moans escaped his lips.

The other ghosts had gone silent. Probably realised they couldn’t induce any sort of fear in Klaus right now. He was already experiencing the worst possible thing that could ever happen.

The Ben voice kept talking, soft comforting words. But Klaus would not, could not look. Ben was gone. Dead. This was a figment of his imagination. Or worse, Ben was going to be one of the horrible dead that constantly screamed at him for the rest of his life. If that was the case, Klaus was going to have to figure out some way the little girl would let him stay. There’s no way he could cope with that.

Another round of screams coursed through him. He vaguely knew he was pulling at his hair, some of it coming out in bloody clumps as he lay on the dirty floor of the mausoleum.

The Ben voice was still talking. Klaus tried to block it out but the voice was in pain. It was sad. It was worried, very worried. And some instinctive part of Klaus’ brain couldn’t let him ignore that voice, sounding like that.

“I’m here Klaus. I’m still me. And you’ll be okay. You’re alive. Fuck, you’re alive. Please just let me know you can hear me. I really need you to open your eyes. Please, Klaus, for me?

Klaus whimpered and shook his head. But he slowly pried his eyes open. Alive, dead or dreamed up, he couldn’t ignore Ben when he asked for something for himself. He so rarely did. And he sounded so scared. Klaus couldn’t ignore it. And besides if Ben was one of those horrific zombie ghosts he wouldn’t be trying to comfort Klaus right now, would he?

“Ben?” he stuttered out, the sound echoing around the room.

“Klaus. Hey. Hi. Yea it’s me. Oh, thank god, I was worried you wouldn’t be able to see me. That I would be alone.”

“Klaus, are you okay?”

But Klaus was barely paying attention. His eyes had dropped to Ben’s torso. Well what was left of it anyway. There was a big gaping hole, where his stomach at once been. Gory bits of inside visible around the edges. And blood so much of it. It covered all of Ben’s lower half.

Ben followed his gaze.

“Sorry about that” he whispered a little self-consciously and moved to fold his arms over his torso, but it didn’t do much to hide the horrible injury.

Klaus leaned forward to touch him. His hand just went straight through.

Klaus leaned back against the brick wall and cried and cried.

Ben was trying to comfort him, Klaus noted in a small part of his mind. He kept trying to reach out to pull him into an embrace, but stopped just before they made contact. Klaus felt guilty. Ben was the one who had just died, he shouldn’t be breaking down. He should be looking after Ben.

He tried to pull himself together. But every time he did a new wave of hysteria came over him. Ben was dead. How was Klaus even meant to live in a world where Ben was dead.

An eternity passed before Klaus finally ran out of tears.

He looked at Ben, well Ben’s ghost, who was sitting cross-legged in front of him.

“Hey. You back with me?” he said gently.

Klaus nodded. “I’m…I’m sorry Ben”. It felt inadequate.

Ben just shook his head. “Not your fault. And could be worse, I guess. At least I’m still here with you.”

If this was a normal conversation Klaus would roll his eyes. Only Ben would find a positive like that out of being dead. But he was right, at least Klaus could still see him. Not like Five.

Oh Fuck. Five. He was gone too. Klaus double-checked just in case he had been wrong.

Klaus managed to choke out the question. He was barely holding himself together but he owed it to his brother to ask it.

“Five?”

Ben shook his head and crumpled in on himself. Phantom blood pooling around his feet.

“Reginald he did something … I think he’s gone Klaus”.

And with that confirmation, The Séance and his ghost brother sat in horrible, horrible silence. Neither willing to talk or listen.

But still it was less horrible than facing the world outside. At least here he could push Five to the edge of his mind and just pretend that he and Ben (if he didn't look at him it was easy to imagine he was still alive) were just hiding under the duvet, forced into the same bed by nightmares. Rather than the stuck in a cold, dark mausoleum because the nightmares had bleed into their life.

Klaus almost wished that Reginald would just leave him in the mausoleum forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always been intrigued by Klaus' reaction when he first meets Ben as a ghost. Even though it rips my heart out lol. So if anyone knows any good fics that include this please let me know!


	14. Chapter 14

The moment early morning sun illuminated the gloom of the mausoleum through a crack in the door Klaus bolted.

Ben knew that would happen.

He had tried to convince Klaus that at the very least he should let his siblings know he was okay, alive, maybe grab some supplies from his room and have Mom or Pogo look over him because _you were dead, Klaus, actually dead._

Klaus had just shaken his head tears streaming down his face as they had near constantly for the entirety of the fateful night.

“Don’t you see Benny? I can’t. I got you and Five killed. I can’t face them, they’ll hate me”.

As much as Ben tried to convince him that none of this was his fault, that his siblings loved him and that Reginald was the only person who could take the blame, Klaus had been resolute.

Ben wished he could literally burn away the memories of Klaus’ reaction to hearing what had happened that night. Ben had been careful not to give any indication that The Horrors had done what they did because of Klaus. Judging from the fresh wave of hysteric tears that the recount had bought on, he suspected Klaus already knew. He probably understood Them better than Ben did anyway.

There was no believable way to skim around what had happened to Five though. Although, Ben was kinda (definitely) confused about the finer details himself. The wretched, distraught look in Klaus’ eyes when he clicked that Five had invoked Reginald’s anger for him almost broke Ben’s heart.

Well if he had a heart.

Being dead was weird, but also weird because it wasn’t as weird as Ben would’ve expected to be. He had explained it like that to Klaus, and for a millisecond, it looked like Klaus’ lips were going to quirk up at the sentence, but the pain set back into his face almost immediately.

Ben had hung around his body for a minute or two after he had left it. He felt as though he should feel some kind of feeling, anything really, when looking down at his mangled body, but he just felt numb. He sought out Klaus pretty quickly, partly because he still needed to check Klaus was okay, death be damned, and party because the sight of the others grieving over his body when he couldn’t even comfort them, was too much to handle.

Diego had been repeatedly punching the front door, blood pouring from his knuckles. Allison and Luther were huddled together closest to Ben’s body, even strong Number One was openly weeping. They were too caught up in themselves to help Vanya, who was curled up in a ball oblivious to the outside world, except to guzzle pills straight from the bottle. That made Ben’s heart seize up even more (if that was possible). Five had just been beginning to research the effects of the so-called anti-anxiety pills Dad had prescribed her, but Ben did not trust the horrid little things. Mom had just stood on the step, after checking his non-existent vitals, a look more human then Ben had even seen on her face and his own blood coating her hands. Pogo was nowhere to be seen.

He had to get out of there. So he ran.

He took a deep breath, which he didn’t need (weird but not weird), and stepped through the mausoleum wall (weird but not weird).

Being with Klaus was like being alive again, once the initial panic that Klaus couldn’t see him passed, and then the second wave of panic that lasted throughout Klaus’ breakdowns passed. The only thing that he really hated about being dead right now was not being able to touch Klaus. If only he could hold his brother, embrace him and soothe him with the tactility he knew Klaus needed (and himself too if he was being honest), being a ghost wouldn’t be so bad.

Ben vaguely wondered why Five hadn’t shown up. He didn’t bring it up to Klaus, they would have time later to talk and mourn and rebuild.

But it seemed odd, he would have picked Five as the type to stick around, continue to protect them from beyond the grave. Ben had felt a great white light beckoning him in the moments after The Horrors had released literal hell, but it’s pull had nothing on his love for his living siblings, so he would be surprised if Five had felt different. Maybe he just hadn’t found them yet. Ben refused to accept that Five was actually gone forever. Even thinking about it felt like a huge part of himself had been ripped away.

When Klaus pushed Reginald to the ground as he pulled open the heavy mausoleum door and ran off into the pink and orange dawn, Ben followed. Not just because Klaus was the only one who could actually see him, or the fact that he knew his brother was going to need a whole lot of looking after in the coming days, hell, probably years, but because that was where he belonged, even after death.

Klaus and Ben. Ben and Klaus. Ben wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, the funeral. I'm so sorry I know I promised happier times a few chapters back- it's coming I promise!


	15. Chapter 15

The day of Ben's funeral was grey and drizzly. Dreary. Not stormy enough to be dramatic nor sunny enough to be oxymoronically cheerful. 

The inhabitants of the Hargreeves mansion (well, what was left of them) gathered forlornly around a regal statue while Sir Reginald Hargreeves spouted off what had to be the world's longest obituary. 

Allison's attention had been wandering throughout the entirety of the depressing boring speech. 

"...Number Six was a dutiful soldier who had stood strong against the reign of evil." 

Allison snorted. What a load of crap.

Most of Dad's spiel sounded like it had been plucked from the obituary in the local newspaper.

It didn't even sound anything like Ben. The statue didn't look much like him either. At least it made it easier to imagine they were just at a service for a random stranger, not for Ben. 

Allison absently wondered why Dad had chosen to immortalise Ben as an 11 years old, five years younger than he was at death. He probably wanted to remember the 'golden years', when the Umbrella Academy was as its peak. Back when they lacked the individuality or maybe just the courage to express any kind of individual thought. Easier to manipulate and far less problematic that way. 

She snorted again. 

This time, Diego who was fidgeting beside her, threw a side-eyed glance down at her. His lips quirked up in a smirk. 

He probably thinks this is a sick joke as well. 

It was nice though, to interact with one of her siblings, however minimal the contact was. 

It had been a lonely few days since that horrific night where she lost three siblings at once. The remainder of the Umbrella Academy had retreated into isolation, in a fucked-up way of dealing with the overwhelming grief. With training cancelled, she had barely spoken to Luther or Diego and had not seen Vanya until they gathered for the funeral. 

Vanya's physical appearance had shocked her. Her eyes were dead, emotionless. Hair limp and greasy. Skin transluscently pale. Zombie-like. 

Allison longed for Klaus so much right now, it hurt. If he were here he would say something ridiculous, making them all giggle at the expense of no one except himself. He always knew just how to break the tension. 

It felt like it had been months rather than days since she had last seen Klaus. She had been holding out hope that he would show for the funeral.

She knew he knew about the funeral because she had overhead Pogo telling Dad, how he had spoke with Klaus after he had caught him in Ben's room yesterday.

It made her heart sieze up that Klaus had been that close but hadn't come to see them. She understood why he didn't want to come back to the Academy, heck she was going to get as far away from here as possible as soon as she could, but she would've thought that he would at least come say goodbye. 

He might even be able to explain some of what had happened that night. Allison was still so confused by it all. 

Dad said that Five had chosen to leave them, leave the Umbrella Academy, he was too yellow-bellied for a life of crime fighting. It was literally the stupidest thing she had ever heard. 

Diego's stuttered explanation of what he and Vanya had seen made it sound like Dad's contraption literally made Five implode. As insane as that sounded, it was one hundred times more probable than Dad's explanation. 

It hurt so much that they couldn't give Five the memorial he deserved. Not that Ben's was proving to be near what he deserved either. 

Dad hadn't even acknowledged Klaus' disappearance. If Pogo hadn't announced at breakfast the morning following That Night that Klaus had chosen to move on from Academy life, they wouldn't even know he was alive.

And even then it wasn't until she, Luther and Diego had begged Mom to check her data for his vitals that they were certain that Pogo and Dad weren't just covering it up like they were with Five. Mom said she couldn't find his location. Pogo theorised he had removed his tracker. Not that Pogo had told her that himself, she had just spent a whole lot of time lurking outside Dad's office in the last three days.

That meant that Klaus had somehow managed to escape Reginald's grasp, otherwise he would probably be in the dungeon cells below the basement. That made Allison proud and she hoped it would stay that way, just that she could somehow get the chance to talk to him. 

She had thought a few times about Klaus' powers since That Night. Her knowledge in the area was actually painfully lacking.

She knew he saw ghosts. And that he did not like them. She knew that drugs and alcohol stopped him seeing ghosts. But she had no idea who the ghosts were and where they came from. Did everyone become a ghost or just a select few? Was there any way he could see Ben or Five? 

Surely if he could, he would have come home by now. Klaus did not have an unsympathetic bone in his body, and if he could connect his dead siblings with his mourning, living ones he would, right? 

Allison wasn't sure how she would feel about that.

If she was being honest, she didn't know what she felt about a lot of things at the moment. 

It was if her life had been separated into two periods. Before The Night, where everything was predictable, things got shit sometimes but at least all her siblings were alive. And then After. Where nothing was right, three of her brothers were gone and happiness felt like a long distant memory.

She wished like anything they could go back to Before. 


	16. Chapter 16

Two boys sat on the roof of the Umbrella Academy mansion, obscured by a parapet, unnoticed by the crow-like congregation of funeral attendees below. Not that two boys would be seen if one of them did happen to look up. Just one grimy, lanky boy swinging his legs against the bricks of his childhood home, smoke billowing up in soft clouds above a mop of unruly, unwashed curls.

"I didn't realise that Dad cared about me this much", Ben chuckled sarcastically.

From their vantage point, it was impossible to catch the words of Reginald's drawn-out speech, but the way he was positioned at the head of the gathering, commanding attention made it easy to tell he was the one speaking.

Klaus stifled his laugh.

He didn't want to catch the attention of the party below.

Fuck, he didn't even want to be here.

But Ben had been harping on at him since yesterday about coming.

Not because he wanted to be there. But because he thought Klaus needed to be there.

Selfless bastard.

Something about closure and _you can't just keep pretending I'm alive, Klaus._

Klaus didn't really see why not. 

But he had come, mostly because he was weighed down by a heavy guilt. 

Ben had died ( _Klaus had killed him)_ just three days ago and since then he had been a witness as Klaus had jumped from high to high, bed to bed. 

But he hadn't complained. Just sighed and stood guard, watchful and weary, never wandering far from Klaus. 

Klaus was grateful, even though he felt like he shouldn't be. He knew he should wish for Ben, to go somewhere else, back to their siblings or the "great beyond". Somewhere where he couldn't keep hurting him.

But Klaus was too selfish for that. So he had accepted that even if he could never have anyone else, and he couldn't he would just hurt them, he was so good at hurting people he cared about, at least he could have Ben. At least he couldn't get him killed again, right? 

Klaus suspected that Ben hoped that by coming here, he would cave and talk to the others. But there was no way in hell that was happening. 

Klaus was in the delicate in between space between high and sober. He had been walking a fine-line since leaving the mausoleum, desperate oh so desperate to escape but careful not to go too far. If he did, Ben might leave. Either by choice, because he couldn't stand to be around a useless junkie anymore, or he could disappear the same way the other ghosts did.

The first bag of white pills that Klaus got his hands on he had been so, so careful even though every cell in his body screamed at him to pump his body with the enough to forget. Forget about how he had ruined anything good he had, and to forget the gruesome attack on the senses of the ghosts that had picked up their haunting with fever after he had temporarily died.

But Ben was now amongst them. 

Ben had mumbled "Please Klaus, be careful, I don't wanna disappear", phantom tears pooling in his eyes. But he had understood. Ben had always sympathised with Klaus' powers, and now he had a glimpse into the world of dead, Klaus could feel him empathy. 

Stupid selfless bastard. 

But Klaus, had been careful. He knew there was one thing worse then being completely sober, and that was being alone. So with a plastic knife he dredged up in the dumpster he cut the pills into little quarters. And settled in to wait out the experiment. 

One quarter, every ten minutes. After 5 quarters, the ghosts flickered and lessened in quantity. Ben stood as solid as ever. 3 quarters later, it was just Ben and Klaus in the alley. It wasn't until after the 14th quarter that Ben started to flicker. Klaus immediately stopped, cold fear shattering the growing delirium. 

For some reason, Ben had a much higher tolerance to the drugs than the other ghosts and Klaus vowed never to overdo it and go beyond the determined 'safety zone'. 

The two boys watched as Reginald finally rounded off his eulogy and motioned for Luther to step forward with the urn. 

He slowly tipped it over and a small pile of ashes accumulated at the foot of the ugly statue of kid Ben. 

Klaus looked over at the ghost of his brother. His expression was unreadable. Klaus was wondering if he was thinking about how that little pile of grey dust could ever have been Ben. Because that was what Klaus was thinking. That, and how the hell Reginald got Ben's body cremated, in the state it must've been in (Klaus had gotten used to the huge, gory hole in Ben's front but he still tried to avoid looking at it), without anyone calling the cops or media. He shuddered to think. 

"Sorry your funeral is so shit" he murmured solemnly. 

Ben just nodded, eyes still focused on the ground. 

"Not your fault". Ben was always doing that, disbarring Klaus from blame. 

"I wish I could have given you a proper send-off from the mortal world" the hint of a mischievous grin forming on Klaus' face. 

"I hate to think what that would involve".

"Oh, you know the usual. A couple of zebras, a chocolate fountain and definitely mankinis", Klaus said with a wave of his hand. 

Ben stared at his brother for a couple of seconds. 

"Over my dead body". 

And then Ben started snorted while Klaus' jaw dropped in shock. 

"You just made a dead joke. Benny, no. Not happening. Won't allow it. I had first dibs. Do you even know how many times I've deprived the world of solid gold death humour in the last few days. I should get a Nobel prize or something for resisting. Thought it was too soon or some shit. And here you are, droppin them like its hot."

Ben snorts grew to cackles.

"Sshh, they'll hear you dumbass" but he couldn't help but be infected by the laughter.

Ben just raised his eyebrows.

"Might scare them to death" and with that Ben was literally rolling on the floor (well, the roof) laughing. Klaus didn't think people actually did that. 

"Walked into that one didn't I" Klaus muttered.

Once the laughter died down, Klaus and Ben sat in sombre silence on the roof, as the funeral drew to a close and one by one the Hargreeves trooped back inside until Vanya was the only one left. 

She hadn't moved in hours and the grey day was slowly becoming darker as night approached. 

"You won't go talk to her" Ben said softly. A statement not a question. Accepting not accusing. 

Klaus shook his head. 

It was completely dark by the time there was any movement in the courtyard. 

Mom slowly approached Vanya and gently lead her back towards the house. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello. Sincerest apologies to anyone that may be reading as I update (and also if there is thank you so so so much for reading, I find it so crazy (in a good way) that people might actually want to read my ramblings about these kids!). 
> 
> I've been trying to write a chapter every day or two but just a forewarning I will be off track for the next couple of days . But don't fear, here's a bit of a filler chapter in the meanwhile and I am already working on some actual real plot so I hope the slow updates over the next wee while don't scare you off!


	17. Chapter 17

“I’m going to try summon Five” Klaus announced one afternoon while huddled over a cup of dingy looking coffee that he had forked out on to escape from the biting cold outside.

He had got Ben one too, much to his protest _you do know I can’t drink, Klaus, or feel the cold, right? Dead remember?_ But the way Klaus blatantly refused to treat him like he wasn’t a real person gave Ben a warm, tingly feeling inside, even after all this time, so he didn’t protest too much.

Klaus’ announcement perplexed Ben. Why now, after nearly two years since Five had disappeared? Where the heck was this coming from?

Instead, Ben asked, “can you do that?”, genuine curiosity in his voice. He had never underestimated Klaus but still, it seemed pretty out there.

Klaus shrugged.

“Maybe. Will have to get clean but after that literally have no clue how. But I have to at least try”.

Ben nodded, he didn’t really know what to say. He was torn between being pleased, proud and concerned. Klaus snorted at the expression on his face.

A few heads had turned their way but neither boy noticed. Klaus was well used to being stared at, dismissed as crazy for talking at empty space. It was part of the reason he preferred the dodgiest part of town, because no one really gave much of a fuck about a lone loony. That, and the fact it was on the other side of the city to the Umbrella Academy.

“What about… you know?” Ben replied gesturing to the ghosts hovering in the far edges of the room.

To his credit, Klaus actually thought about it for a second. He hadn’t been fully sober in about eight years.

Klaus gave a non-committal hum in acknowledgement.

Then quiet enough that Ben wasn’t sure if Klaus was talking to himself or not, “he would’ve done it for me, ya know if the situations were like, reversed. Fuck probably would’ve got it done it a long time ago”.

Ben smiled, a grin so wide it hurt his cheekbones.

“What?” Klaus demanded

“Proud of you, dumbass”.

Klaus lit up. He was still so unaccustomed to praise.

Trying to build up any semblance of self-worth in Klaus had been an uphill slog for most of Ben’s life.

And he often thought he was doing an okay job, well when considering he was dealing with someone who was convinced they were the sole cause of the death of two of their brothers and an unstable catalyst for tragedy who lived on the streets in a constant state of intoxication and haunted by the average person’s worst nightmare.

But moments like this where a simple complement had such a monumental impact think maybe he wasn’t so crash-hot at it.

Nonetheless, while Klaus finished the second coffee (which involved some very interesting threats and compromises), Ben dove in headfirst and excitedly nattered away everything he knew about rehab processes and the best local centres and sobriety benefits and anything else he could remember from all the self-help books he had read (well, Klaus had done the page turning for him).

Klaus had offered tentative smiles, only half listening.

\---

Actually getting Klaus to check into a rehab centre was a whole other story.

After a sitting on a bench outside for over an hour, debating the benefits of not going in Klaus eventually approached the front desk. Ben suspected that the slushy snow starting to fall was a motivating factor.

All was going smoothly until his assigned caseworker asked for a contact person that could be used for support throughout and after his rehabilitation.

“We believe it is important that the participants in our programme have a friend or family member that can help them readjust to the outside world, once they complete the process. This should be someone you trust and that you are comfortable with us providing updates throughout you journey to” she said, not-unkindly, but in the monotonous tone of someone who had recited the same lines numerous times.

Ben could tell Klaus was ready to bolt right then and there. He offered him an encouraging smile when Klaus looked over his shoulder at him with a panicked glance.

“Vanya?” Ben suggested softly.

Klaus shook his head fervently. The caseworker didn’t bat an eyelid, long used to the erratic ticks of druggies.

“Is it really necessary?” he asked her, a hint of a whine in his voice.

“I’m afraid so”.

Klaus gave a soft huff

“Use Diego Hargreeves then”

The caseworker’s eyes had widened as Klaus gave instructions to contact the Hargreeve’s mansion to get a hold of him but not to give any information about him to anyone else. It had been a long time since the heyday of the Umbrella Academy but six super-powered kids tended to stick in people’s memories. Klaus usually tried to avoid using his last name whenever possible in case someone made the connection.

To her credit, the caseworker maintained an air of professionalism about her and just nodded.

“Of course, patient confidentiality is of utmost importance to us.”

Klaus gave her a grateful smile.

“Right, I’ll show you to your room so you can get settled in”.

When she turned her back, Klaus very ineloquently stuck out his tongue out at Ben which Ben translated as something along the lines of _count your blessings I’m still here, that whole shtick wasn’t part of the bargain._ This was followed by an exaggerated sigh which Ben took to mean _I wish ghost brothers could be used as contact persons. I don’t want to get Diego involved in this shit, hopefully the caseworker can’t get hold of him._


	18. Chapter 18

When he gave it any thought, Diego always thought his time at the Umbrella Academy would end with bang. 

His growing resentment towards Dad, towards Luther and towards the whole fucked-up thing was near boiling point. Everyday was filled with brutal reminders of the stark absence of Ben, Five and Klaus which only grew his rage. He was just biding his time really, if he was truly honest with himself he was procrastinating. Firstly because he was actually a little bit scared of how to live in the real world. Not that he had been cooped up in the academy like goodie two-shoes Luther, he spent most of his nights wandering the city, it was just he had no idea how it all worked, where would he live, how would he get money, it wasn't like many jobs would be open to someone who's CV primarily consisted of being a childhood superhero. 

Although that hadn't seemed to hold Allison back. It had been a week since she had taken off to explore the lights of LA. The little wave she gave up to the window the Diego was looking out of on the third floor kept replaying in his mind. 

And soon Vanya would be off too. She had been accepted to some prestigious music programme at a college in the city and started next month. Not that Diego had found out from Vanya herself, jeez the most they'd spoke in the last two years was along the lines of 'can you pass me the pepper', but Mom had told him about how she helped her with the application. 

Diego was a little jealous that his sisters at least had some sort of direction, ambition. Whenever he thought about what he wanted to do for the rest of his life he came up blank. 

He supposed he should be sad to see them go. 

But in all honesty, it was a bit of a relief. Since the loss of their brothers, there had been a giant rift amongst the remainder of the Hargreeves siblings. It was as though they had lost the glue that held them together. Conversations were stilted and polite. They avoided each other as much as possible. They basically became strangers in their own homes. 

It would be a relief to not have to keep up the pretence anymore with the girls out of the house.

Diego was kind of happy in a weird way that he knew Luther would never leave, he was far too loyal to turn his back on his 'duty'. At least while Diego was still hanging around he would still have someone to take out his boredom on. Riling up Number One never got old. 

Ah, speak of the devil. 

"Phones for you" Luther muttered. 

That threw Diego enough that he didn't throw Luther any bait. Who the fuck would be calling him. 

He scowled. 

"Who is it?" 

"Dunno" replied the ever so eloquent Number One. 

Diego thought about ignoring it, no news was good news, but trudged to the where the phone hung on the wall. At least it was something to break up the tedium of the afternoon. 

"Hello?"

"Hi, is that Mr Hargreeves?" 

"One of them. Who are you?"

"My name is Christine, I work at The Oaks Rehabilitation Centre"

"Ookayy" Diego drew out. 

"I'm calling you because one of patients has requested you to be their external support person". 

This made Diego's heart thrum like a hummingbird but he didn't know why. 

"W-what?" he asked, a whisper of a stutter that had been mostly absent for the last couple of years creeping in. 

"It is entirely up to you, of course. If you chose to accept, the role will involve participating in weekly sessions with Klaus as he moves through the programme, so we can provide him with the best possible chances of success. The programme-" 

"Klaus" Diego whispered, interrupting the women whose name he couldn't remember for the life of him. 

And then louder, "you h-have Klaus?". 

An absolute whirlwind of emotion slammed through Diego and he couldn't make head nor tails of it. 

Elation. Agony. Anger. 

He dropped the phone and some-part of his brain heard the faint voice of the rehab women telling him he didn't have to come right away, the first session wasn't scheduled for two weeks. 

Like hell he was waiting that long. 

Diego gave the worn map in his glovebox a quick squiz before driving like a possessed man to the centre. 

He slammed the doors open and marched up to the front desk.

“Klaus Hargreeves” he demanded.

The poor nurse on the front desk, whose name badge declared him as Dave, was taken aback with the aggression. He tapped the keyboard a few times.

“ah, sir, it seems you haven’t made a visiting appointment and there is no session scheduled” he replied a tinge nervously.

Diego forced himself to tone it down.

“It’s an important family matter”.

The nurse looked hesitant but must’ve sensed Diego’s desperation.

“His room his down the hall, fourth on the right. But he normally hangs out in the common room, just up the stairs”.

Diego nodded suddenly deprived of all his previous urgency.

He felt nervous, which couldn’t be right. Diego didn’t get nervous.

So, he drew up to his full height, squared his shoulders and headed up the stairs.

It was a nice room. Big bay windows. An array of mismatched couches. A small piano in the corner. A comforting room.

And a thankfully empty room.

Well empty, except for a brightly dressed, skinny (too skinny), wild haired figure curled up in a big brown arm chair tongue sticking out in concentration as they worked purple yarn with knitting needles.

Klaus.

As was usual (well, was usual, it had been a full two years. Diego didn’t know what was normal for Klaus anymore) with Klaus, he didn’t hear Diego’s approach because of his shoddy hearing from the ghosts.

“Klaus?”

And the other boy looked up. Immediately a look of utter fear came across his face, paling it by several shades.

He quickly recovered though, and jumped up off the seat, arrogant grin washing over his face. A persona. An act.

“Diego, dear brother of mine. Long time, no see”.

And Diego couldn’t take it.

“What. The. Fuck. Klaus. Where have you been. I thought you must be dead. I’ve searched everywhere for you. You just left, you asshole. I thought you were d-d-dead”.

At least Klaus had the decency to look a little sheepish.

“Um. Yeah. Sorry about that. You know things to do, people to see.”

Diego was seeing red. He didn’t remember moving but suddenly he had lifted Klaus up by the shoulders and was shaking him. He swallowed his exhilaration at the fact that he was physically touching a very alive Klaus.

“You left for two fucking years. You didn’t even have the fucking decency to let us know you were alive. Or, you know, explain what even happened that night. You didn’t even come to the funeral. You fucking dickhead.”

Klaus didn’t reply. He was looking at a spot over Diego’s shoulder, avoiding eye contact, a helpless look on his face. A small part of his brain noted that Klaus was still taller than him, despite his delayed growth spurt when he hit 17. Klaus certainly weighed a lot less, it was almost effortless to keep him lifted off the ground.

“And why, Klaus. I just don’t fucking get it. This big fucking disappearing act. Where have you even been? Dad said it was for attention. And you know what, I think he might be right.

“We all lost them that night, you know. It’s not just you. You had no right to just take off because you c-couldn’t handle it. And leave us thinking y-you were d-dead”.

He gave Klaus an extra shake for good measure.

Diego was frustrated at the stutter coming through and the tears were starting to burn in the corners of his eyes.

While he angrily wiped at his eyes with his upper arm, he caught a glimpse of Klaus mouthing words at someone behind him.

Diego quickly spun on his heels, dropping Klaus unceremoniously. The last thing he needed was an audience for this spectacle.

There was no one there.

Diego’s brain started whirring. There was no one in the room. That HE could see. Klaus was in a rehab centre. He must be somewhat sober. That meant ghosts. Ghosts were dead. Their brothers were dead.

Holy fuck. Klaus could see Five and Ben.

“You absolute fucking asshole” Diego spat with as much menace as he could muster.

As he all but ran out of the room, he heard Klaus mutter in a defeated tone:

“Well, that went well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone still sticking with me, a nice meaty chapter as an apology for the infrequent updates xx


	19. Chapter 19

“Planning on stopping moping anytime soon?” Ben asked from his perch on the window ledge in Klaus’ room. 

Klaus just groaned into his pillow. 

“Just wondering, because I have a very active social calendar you know” Ben said with a grin. 

That got a snort from Klaus, muffled by the fabric of the pillow. 

“Hey, it’s true. Keep going like this and I’ll ditch you to hang out with my other friends.” 

That actually garnered a grin from Klaus and he rolled over so Ben could see his face.

“What like, fat-foot Fred or off-her-rockers Mildred” said Klaus referring to the harmless but just seriously annoying ghost who hang out in the hallway and the elderly lady who had been in the rehab centre forever and they were like 98% sure was alive, but Ben swore she could see him. It gave him the creeps. 

Ben snorted. 

“But in all seriousness, are you okay?”. 

Klaus sighed. 

“I fucked up”. 

“Tell me something I don’t know” Ben said but softened the words with another grin so Klaus knew he didn’t mean it. Well, didn’t mean it maliciously. 

“Ugh, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Call me crazy, but maybe some actual communication might not go amiss”. 

“Nah huh” Klaus shook his head.

”What would I even say. Oh, hey there Diego, sorry I didn’t keep in touch over the last couple of years, was too busy trying to avoid you so I couldn’t get you killed like I did my other two brothers”. 

He said it with a smile, but his bravado fell away as his voice cracked on the end of a sentence. 

Ben just hummed comfortingly and moved from his perch to sit cross-legged beside Klaus. 

He didn’t bother with the counter-argument, they’d been through this enough times over the years that he knew there was no point. Klaus knew Ben didn’t blame him for his death, but Klaus could never stop blaming himself. 

“Might not actually be a bad place to start” Ben suggested cautiously. 

Klaus just shook his head. 

“Nah, it’s probably a good thing he definitely won’t be coming back anyway. I am sorry though. It’s me he’s avoiding, not you. I wish there was some way you could hang out with them”.

Ben just shook his head. 

He ignored the pang in his heart when he thought about how much harder it was going to be dealing with not seeing the family after Diego’s visit today. It was like suddenly the flood gates had opened. He had been burying how much he missed them like a stubborn ostrich with his head in the sand (Klaus was really rubbing off on him), and what had been a trickle unexpectedly had become a powerful rushing wall of longing. 

It had been the first time he had truly hated being a ghost because being in the same room as one of the Hargreeves other than Klaus, for the first time in years but not being able to interact with him had been torturous. 

“We’re a package deal”. 

Klaus grinned at him even though his eyes were sad. 

“Wanna do some training”. 

Ben translated this as I can’t deal with my emotions for any longer and need a distraction stat. 

“Yea, sure”. 

Klaus was 6 days into the rehab programme and had gone through the worst stages of withdrawal with surprising grace. 

Not that it had been easy going. There were times where cravings hit Klaus like a brick wall. His skin would be crawl and grotesque ghosts would converge on him screaming his name, howling for revenge. Dave, easily the youngest (and loveliest in Klaus’ opinion. Well, Ben’s too if he was honest) nurse at the centre, had once bodily hauled him back inside after an escape attempt, and then again after he caught Klaus picking the lock to the cleaning supplies closet. 

But, it wasn’t as bad as either Hargreeves brother had expected. The programme actually had some pretty good techniques and the sessions weren’t a load of fluffy bullshit. The ghosts here were, for the most part, fairly mellow, some even lucid enough to have a chat with. There were lots of distractions as well, Klaus knitted, painted, played the drums and unsuccessfully flirted with Dave. 

And then there was training. 

Klaus and Ben had been working to hone Klaus’ power, albeit with few successes thus far, but enough to keep up morale with the project. 

It was hard though, like two blind men trying to find each other in a shopping mall. Initially they hadn’t even known if Klaus could do anything more, god it was never like his powers were something he had embraced and they had always naively believed Dad when he said all Klaus could do was see ghosts. 

When he first got sober, Klaus had spent hour upon hour with his face screwed up in concentration, body rigid, in an attempt to conjure Five. Ben finally convinced him to stop before he could give himself an aneurism and suggested they start smaller. 

“It’s like with a weight lifter. Even though they lift with their arms, the rest of their body has to be strong to be able to do it. If you learn how to do other things with your powers it’ll help you conjure Five.”

“Let’s get these bad boys going then” Klaus said kissing his non-existent biceps.

Since then, Klaus had learnt to push ghosts away from him. Something that came in handy with both Ben when he was being an annoying shit and the other ghosts. Although he could only manage around 10 meters distance, he was improving every day. 

He had also learnt to summon, much to Ben’s displeasure when Klaus used it as a prank. He could be anywhere in the centre when a cold feeling would wash over him and suddenly he would be standing in front of a cackling Klaus. This hadn’t worked on the others ghosts, although Ben doubted some instinctive part of Klaus was subconsciously holding him back from materialising his greatest fear. 

He didn’t mind too much though, seeing the glee on Klaus’ face as his confidence in his powers grew was worth it. 

And the fact that he might get to see Five again.

The last couple of days, Klaus had insisted on learning to Ben visible to others. They didn’t have many test subjects because the other patients would dismiss a boy with a gaping bleeding hole where his stomach should be as a lingering drug induced hallucination and Klaus couldn’t hold it for very long anyway but catching sight of his reflection in a glass window had been a very weird experience for Ben.

They had also been working at making Ben corporal, also Klaus’ idea. There hadn’t been success yet but Ben swore he had felt a tingly sensation in his fingertips, the most feeling he had in years. 

They had discussed sneaking into the Academy to see if Dad had any notes on Klaus’ powers that could help them out. They hadn’t reached a decision on it yet, both of them anxious for different reasons. 

Diego’s visit earlier today hadn’t helped with Klaus’ and his resolution to stay as far away from his siblings as possible. Ben even had an inkling of a suspicion that that was what all the insistence of making Ben visible and corporeal was about. He would bet good money that Klaus thought that if Ben could interact with the living world, he would leave Klaus. 

Ben snorted to himself thinking about what a moron his brother his. 

Klaus looked up from his painting with a raised eyebrow. 

“Something funny, mein bruder?” 

“Nah, just thinking” Ben replied as he moved round to look at what Klaus was working on. 

The image took his breath away. It actually took him a second to recognise it was of him. Mid-laugh, happy, whole. All warm tones. 

Man, Klaus really had a knack for painting. Ben didn’t know this was how Klaus saw him.

“Like it?” 

Ben just nodded. 

“Good. Because I’ve been thinking of trying something. Come here.” 

And then Klaus’ hands were hovering over Ben’s stomach. Well, the hole. He would be close enough to be touching it, if Ben had a body to touch. 

Ben was confused. Both boys avoided looking at, talking about or getting anywhere near the injury like the plague. 

Klaus closed his eyes. 

After about a minute of silence, Ben gasped. 

The hole had healed. 

Well not healed, he was a ghost, but somehow Klaus had changed his appearance so he didn’t have a mutilated, gory torso. 

Ben sunk in relief. 

Klaus opened his eyes “huh, pretty cool, right”, he was panting slightly.

For the second time in the last ten minutes, Ben was speechless and just nodded in reply. 

“Hang on, there’s something else I want to do.”

Klaus closed his eyes again and this time it only took a few seconds before Ben’s clothes were clean. Free from the horrible congealed phantom blood that had been there since he died. 

Klaus didn’t open his eyes though when the job was done. 

Suddenly Klaus’ eye level got closer. 

Ben was growing. 

What the fuck.

Klaus opened his eyes, gave Ben a satisfied glance up and down and pushed him to the bathroom to stand in front of the mirror, making him visible. 

Ben gaped at little at his reflection. 

The changes weren’t huge. His jawline was sharper, his shoulders broader, he was a little above Klaus’ shoulder height as opposed to his chest which he had been after Klaus’ latest growth spurt. 

He looked older. 

“What do you think? I kind of took a guess but this is how I imagined you would look if you know, you hadn’t….I can change it if you want, it was just weird, not, you know, being the same age, well looking the same age, and anyway we can’t have you looking all gloriously youthful at 16 when I’m an old man with a hunched back and whiskers, can we now.” Klaus rambled on. 

Ben just started laughing. Once he started he couldn’t stop. 

“thank you” he managed to wheeze out. 

And then both boys were cackling, dancing around the bathroom. 

The laughter only increased, well from Ben anyway, when Dave stuck his head in to check everything was all right and a brilliant crimson flooded Klaus’ face at being caught behaving like a madman in the bathroom by his nurse crush.


End file.
